Minnesota Twins prospect Luke Keaschall breaks forearm in win over Los Angeles Angels

Couldn’t have gone much better Friday night, right? Pablo López returns and looks good again, the offense welcomes him with its biggest outburst of the year, Byron Buxton and Trevor Larnach hit 400-foot homers.

Just about the perfect night.

Except — these are the Twins.

Minnesota walked away with an 11-4 blowout victory over the Angels at Target Field, then learned that Luke Keaschall, who in just one week has become an important part of reviving that offense, will miss several weeks after an 86-mph sinker from Kyle Hendricks broke a bone in his right forearm.

“Just hit the bone in the right spot, I guess,” said the 22-year-old rookie infielder, who was hitting .368 with a .520 on-base percentage and five stolen bases in his first six games in the big leagues. “I was a little angry. But I’ve got to try and think of the big picture. Think about getting healthy as fast as possible.”

It’s a huge letdown for the Twins, who have searched all month for a way to turbocharge their 2.5-runs-per-game offense and marveled at the way Keaschall took off from the start.

“He’s been extremely impressive, and his attitude’s great. He really likes to work,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “And when you have young players with really good ability that really like to work — I mean really like to work — it just kind of brews up and has the makings of a guy that can play here for a long time.”

Just not for another month or two.

The Twins acted swiftly to replace Keaschall, acquiring infielder Kody Clemens, son of seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens, from Philadelphia shortly after the game. Clemens has a .197 batting average in 153 career games, but the Twins are desperate for healthy infielders, so he will be added to the roster Saturday. Clemens was designated for assignment by the Phillies earlier in the week.

The injury tamped down the Twins’ enthusiasm over their blowout win, created when the hitters provided López with more runs to work with than during his three previous starts this year — combined.

The Twins were actually outhit by Los Angeles 10-8, but Buxton added a triple to go with his home run, and Larnach a double.

And Hendricks provided the Twins offense with plenty of extra fuel: five walks, a career high for the soft-tossing 12-year veteran. Three of them came in the fourth inning, when Larnach’s three-run homer, his fourth of both this season and this week, capped a six-run inning, the Twins’ biggest since last Aug. 21.

“I finally started hitting the ball hard again” last weekend in Atlanta, Larnach said of his four-homer week. “It felt like the work I was putting in was paying off, and I’m starting to see some normalcy.”

Dominating the Angels is normal for the Twins, at least lately. Last year, the Twins won five of six games against the southern Californians, and scored 50 runs, or 8.3 per game, in doing so.

Though Keaschall tried to stay the game — “Honestly, I thought I was fine,” he said. “I was running the bases and I’m like, ‘It’s just going to be a little sore. I’ll be good.’” — Mickey Gasper replaced him two innings later and was himself hit by a Hendricks pitch. Gasper went on to collect a single and double, each of them driving in a run, in his next two at-bats, his first two-hit game in the major leagues.

BOXSCORE: Twins 11, L.A. Angels 4

MLB standings

López, out for 16 days because of a hamstring injury, needed 101 pitches to get through five innings, and only once did he retire the Angels in order. A walk and two singles in the second inning scored a run, and after Jorge Soler doubled in the fifth inning, Mike Trout singled him home.

The Angels also hit a pair of solo home runs off the Twins bullpen, with Logan O’Hoppe connecting off Louie Varland, and Trout hitting his ninth of the season off Cole Sands. Trout’s shot gave him home runs in consecutive games at Target Field, which doesn’t sound particularly unusual until you realize his last game here was on Sept. 25, 2022. Injuries have kept the three-time AL MVP from playing in Minnesota in either of the past two seasons.