Keaschall kept bringing the Twins back until Caratini finished off the Yankees in 13

The rally arrived late, but the grip never followed

For eight innings, Minnesota’s pitching made this look like a game the Yankees might never crack. Zebby Matthews handled the first six with authority, allowing only two hits and two walks while striking out eight over 97 pitches. Jeff Hoffman and A.J. Minter followed with two more scoreless innings, and by that point New York’s offensive line was taking on a familiar shape: traffic without lift. The Yankees finished with nine hits and five walks, but they also struck out 17 times, did not homer, and produced just one extra-base hit all afternoon.

That lone extra-base hit changed everything for a moment. After Josh Bell’s RBI single in the first and Ryan Kreidler’s 386-foot homer in the fifth had built a 2-0 Twins lead, New York finally broke through in the ninth when Anthony Volpe doubled to right to score Jose Caballero and George Lombard Jr. Cody Bellinger’s 3-for-5 day gave the Yankees their steadiest source of contact, and Volpe’s two RBIs rescued a lineup that had been quiet for most of the day.

But a comeback is not the same thing as control, and that was the Yankees’ problem the rest of the way. Ali Sánchez singled home Bellinger in the 10th. Caballero’s sacrifice fly brought in Lombard Jr. in the 11th. Each time, Minnesota answered in the bottom half: Luke Keaschall singled home Brooks Lee in the 10th, and Royce Lewis lifted a sacrifice fly that scored Walker Jenkins in the 11th. Our take: when a club reaches base 14 times by hit or walk and still scores only four runs in 13 innings, the explanation usually starts with the 17 strikeouts and ends with the 26 runners left on base. That was New York’s night in one sentence.

Keaschall’s fingerprints were on every answer

Keaschall was the thread that kept reappearing whenever the Twins needed one more push. He went 3-for-5, scored twice and drove in a run, and those numbers undersell how central he was to the shape of the game. He crossed the plate on Bell’s first-inning single, tied the game in the 10th with a single to left that scored Lee, and then came home again in the 13th on Caratini’s winner. In a game that kept resetting itself, Keaschall kept showing up in the reset.

Minnesota got its supporting production in tidy, useful bursts. Kreidler’s fifth-inning homer was the only ball either team drove over the fence, and in a game where extra-base hitting was scarce, that mattered. Bell opened the scoring with his RBI single. Caratini, in one plate appearance, delivered the last swing that mattered by singling to center to score Keaschall in the 13th. Brooks Lee scored once, Walker Jenkins scored once, and Lewis turned one of those extra-inning chances into a run with his sacrifice fly.

The Twins were not flawless at the plate. They also left 26 on base, struck out 11 times and hit into three double plays. They finished with 10 hits and five walks, which means the missed opportunities were not hard to find. Still, Minnesota did two things New York could not quite manage often enough: it got the game’s only home run, and it answered every extra-inning punch immediately. In a 13-inning game, that kind of refusal to let the score sit can be the difference between a frustrating box score and a winning one.

Our take: a useful win for Minnesota, a louder warning for New York

The Twins should feel good about how much of this win came from the mound. Their staff worked 13 innings, allowed nine hits and four runs, and only two of those runs were earned. Matthews established the tone early, and after Yoendrys Gomez was hit for the ninth-inning tie, Minnesota still found a way to stabilize the rest of the night. Kody Funderburk, Travis Adams and Tommy Nance combined for 4.1 innings after that, with two runs charged and none of them earned. That is the kind of recovery inside a game that keeps extra innings from snowballing.

The caution for Minnesota is straightforward. Fifteen baserunners turned into five runs, and three ground-ball double plays cut short innings that could have ended this much sooner. Our take: beating a Yankees club that struck out 17 times and produced only one double is the good part. Needing 13 innings to do it is the reminder that the Twins still left a lot of offense unused.

For the Yankees, the sharper lesson is on the offensive side because the pitching gave them a fair chance to win. Carlos Rodón delivered a quality start with six innings and two earned runs allowed, and New York’s staff was charged with only two earned runs across 12 innings. Yet the lineup kept making the hard part harder. Spencer Jones struck out five times, Ryan McMahon four, Luis Garcia Jr. three, and the team’s entire extra-base output was Volpe’s ninth-inning double. Bellinger’s three hits and Volpe’s two RBIs kept the Yankees alive, but this was a game that asked for steadier contact from more than two spots. Instead, the Yankees spent too much of the night waiting for one swing that never came.

Scoring moments

1. 1st Inning

   Bell singled to left, Keaschall scored, Jeffers to second.

2. 5th Inning

   Kreidler homered to left (386 feet).

3. 9th Inning

   Volpe doubled to right, Caballero scored and Lombard Jr. scored.

4. 10th Inning

   Sánchez singled to center, Bellinger scored.

5. 10th Inning

   Keaschall singled to left, Lee scored.

6. 11th Inning

   Caballero hit sacrifice fly to center, Lombard Jr. scored.

7. 11th Inning

   Lewis hit sacrifice fly to center, Jenkins scored, Clemens to second.

8. 13th Inning

   Caratini singled to center, Keaschall scored.