Brooks Lee laid down a walk-off squeeze bunt to score Byron Buxton from third base and deliver the Minnesota Twins a 6-5 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis.
Kody Clemens added a three-run homer for Minnesota, which won in the bottom of the ninth for the second straight game. Royce Lewis went 2-for-4 with a pair of RBIs.
Danny Jansen was 3-for-3 with a double and an RBI to lead the Rays at the plate. Chandler Simpson finished 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Twins reliever Jhoan Duran (5-3) pitched two scoreless innings to earn the victory.
Rays reliever Garrett Cleavinger (0-4) allowed a run on two hits without recording an out.
Lee set off a celebration in the field after his successful squeeze bunt. After stepping to the plate with runners on first and third with nobody out, he put a bunt up the first-base line that sent the ball rolling just over the bag to stay fair.
Buxton sprinted across home plate and immediately turned to join his teammates as they mobbed Lee in the basepaths.
The Twins opened the scoring in the bottom of the second. Lewis hit a soft dribbler down the first-base line, and he beat the throw to first for an RBI infield single.
The Rays pulled even in the third on Jansen’s RBI double to left.
Josh Lowe put Tampa Bay on top 2-1 with an RBI double in the fourth. He drove in Jonathan Aranda, who hit a ground-rule double two batters earlier.
The Rays scored two more runs to increase their lead to 4-1 in the fifth. Yandy Diaz hit a sacrifice fly to right, and Junior Caminero hit a sacrifice fly to center.
Simpson drove in a run with a bunt to make it 5-1 for the Rays in the sixth.
The Twins stormed back with four runs in the bottom of the sixth to even the score at 5-all.
Lewis started the rally with an RBI single to center to drive in Carlos Correa. Clemens delivered in the next at-bat with a three-run homer to left.
–Field Level Media
