Josh Bell and Dean Kremer carry Twins past Rangers before late ninth-inning scare

Bell’s bat reset the game twice

Minnesota took the lead in the first without needing a hit from its main table-setter. Luke Keaschall came around on Bell’s sacrifice fly to centre, and even that early run hinted at the shape of the afternoon: the Twins kept finding ways to put pressure on Texas before the middle of the order cashed in.

Texas pulled even in the third when Danny Jansen homered to left-centre, but the tie did not last long. In the bottom half, Bell answered with a two-run drive to right that scored Keaschall again and restored a 3-1 Twins lead. Bell finished 1-for-2 with a homer, a walk and three RBIs, and those two scoring plays framed the most important stretch of the game.

The Twins added on in the fifth, and this time the inning was built more by traffic than thunder. Ryan Jeffers forced home Walker Jenkins with a walk, then Kody Clemens singled to centre to score Keaschall for a 5-1 margin. Keaschall’s line was a curious one — no hits, three runs scored — but he kept turning up in the middle of Minnesota’s offence.

Kremer gave Minnesota the control it needed

While Minnesota’s lineup was stacking runners, Kremer made sure Texas rarely had the same luxury. The right-hander worked seven innings, allowed three hits, walked nobody and gave up only Jansen’s solo homer. On a day when the Rangers finished with three home runs, that zero in the walk column mattered as much as anything Kremer did.

Texas stayed within reach almost entirely through isolated power. Elias Díaz hit a solo homer in the eighth to trim the lead to 5-2, but Lewis answered immediately in the bottom half with a solo shot to centre. That swing did not end the game, but it changed the tone of the ninth by restoring a four-run cushion.

That extra run turned out to be valuable. Brandon Nimmo scored on Corey Seager’s two-run homer in the ninth, cutting Minnesota’s lead to 6-4 and forcing the Twins to finish a game that had looked comfortable much earlier. Andrew Morris still got the final two outs, and Minnesota escaped without letting the late rally erase its better work from the first eight innings.

Our take: Minnesota won with accumulation, Texas nearly stole it with power

This result was a good reminder that baseball games can tilt in two very different ways. Texas hit three home runs and got four runs from six hits, which is efficient enough to stay dangerous. Minnesota, though, kept building innings with 10 hits, five walks and another free baserunner by hit batter. The Twins did not overwhelm the Rangers in one burst after Bell’s third-inning homer; they kept nudging the margin outward until Texas ran out of outs.

There is still something for both clubs to clean up. Minnesota would probably prefer a calmer finish after putting so many men aboard and carrying a 6-2 lead into the ninth, because a late two-run homer made the margin look thinner than the game often felt. Texas, meanwhile, can point to two obvious areas: its hitters drew no walks, and its pitchers issued five walks while also hitting a batter. When one side keeps creating extra baserunners and the other relies mostly on home-run swings, the team doing the accumulating usually has the sturdier path. Sunday belonged to Minnesota for exactly that reason.

Scoring moments

1. 1st Inning

   Bell hit sacrifice fly to center, Keaschall scored.

2. 3rd Inning

   Jansen homered to left center (385 feet).

3. 3rd Inning

   Bell homered to right (366 feet), Keaschall scored.

4. 5th Inning

   Jeffers walked, Jenkins scored, Bell to second, Keaschall to third.

5. 5th Inning

   Clemens singled to center, Keaschall scored, Jeffers to second, Bell to third.

6. 8th Inning

   Díaz homered to left center (402 feet).

7. 8th Inning

   Lewis homered to center (412 feet).

8. 9th Inning

   Seager homered to right center (387 feet), Nimmo scored.