Down early, Twins rally for 8-3 win over the Marlins

Simeon Woods Richardson hit a wall in his last start of the season, but it was a bunt that helped the Twins’ offense finally climb over its own barrier.

The Twins, gifted four errors from the Miami Marlins infield, rallied from an early three-run deficit to keep their slim playoff hopes alive in an 8-3 victory Wednesday at Target Field. After failing to score more than four runs over the previous eight games, the Twins pulled ahead with a five-run seventh inning.

Snapping a three-game losing streak, the Twins remain playoff long shots. They sit two games back in the wild-card race with four games left after Kansas City and Detroit won Wednesday.

“We needed a come-from-behind win like that, and an inning like that, to just boost the confidence of everyone,” Carlos Correa said.

BOXSCORE: Twins 8, Marlins 3

MLB Standings

With the score tied 3-3 in the seventh inning, Brooks Lee snapped a 0-for-15 slump with a leadoff double to the right-field wall. Christian Vázquez followed with a sacrifice bunt in a two-strike count, and the Twins’ small-ball play was rewarded when Marlins reliever Declan Cronin airmailed his throw to first base, the ball flying into foul territory as pinch runner Manuel Margot scored the go-ahead run.

“Um, no,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said when asked if the bench called for Vázquez to bunt after he reached two strikes. “But sometimes things work out.”

Correa, who made a massive baserunning mistake in the fifth inning, delivered an RBI double to continue the rally, punching the air when he stopped at second base. After two more walks, Carlos Santana hit a bases-clearing, three-run double to right field.

It was only the fourth time the Twins have scored more than four runs in their past 21 games. Six Twins relievers combined to pitch eight scoreless innings, yielding five hits and zero walks while striking out 14.

“It just felt good to have a rally,” Lee said. “We had a lot of guys on base, and people came through. That’s how our offense should be.”

Said Correa: “It seemed like we couldn’t do that the past couple of weeks, and that inning was truly special. Hopefully, we can build on that.”

The Twins were in an immediate three-run hole. Five batters reached base against Woods Richardson before he recorded his first out. Jake Burger hit a three-run homer on his 11th pitch, driving a changeup that floated over the middle of the plate past the left-field wall.

Twins reliever Louie Varland fired up the dugout after he stranded two inherited runners in the second inning, striking out the first three batters he faced. He left two more men on base in the third inning.

“Louie coming in and shutting them down the way he did and just being Louie, man. Him barking in the dugout, that gets you going,” said Byron Buxton, who hit a game-tying homer in the fourth inning, snapping a 63-inning homerless drought. “He wants to go back out there. Right before you go out there, he gives you a bark and it’s like, ‘He’s ready.’”

The Twins loaded the bases with one out in the fifth inning after back-to-back errors from the Marlins defense and a single from Trevor Larnach. Correa’s baserunning blunder wiped away a potential lead.

Royce Lewis lined a first-pitch fastball to left field where Griffin Conine made a diving catch after running forward five steps. Correa, the runner at second, thought the ball would drop and took several steps toward third base. Before Martin crossed home plate, where he should have easily scored when he tagged on the catch, Correa was thrown out at second base to end the inning.

“Just stupid baserunning,” Correa said. “That should never happen. Just bad baserunning. Unacceptable.”

For the first time in seemingly a couple of weeks, the Twins made up for their mistakes.

“The guys stayed at it,” Baldelli said. “It’s not easy when you are down and you’re down early. It is a challenging thing. We almost pretend like it’s not, but it is.”