Twins find fuel in back-to-back homers, defeat Toronto Blue Jays

Christian Vázquez rocketed a 92-mph fastball in the fourth inning, and he held his bat out as he took his first seven steps out of the batter’s box. Once the ball landed in the second deck, a solo homer, he hopped and flipped his bat.

Call it a cathartic moment after the Twins had a sluggish and sloppy start against the Toronto Blue Jays in Sunday’s series finale at Target Field.

Brooks Lee opened the fourth inning with a tying homer, lofting a fly ball that carried just beyond the right field wall. Vázquez, the next batter, blasted a no-doubt homer to put the Twins ahead in a 6-3 victory to avoid being swept.

The Twins, who have a 9-10 record since their 13-game winning streak, made up for their early mistakes and ended a three-game losing streak despite leaving 13 runners on base. The Twins outhit the Blue Jays 12-5, and they drew eight walks.

“I’d really like to highlight the at-bats we had today,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I mean, that was, like, animalistic stuff. Our guys, up and down the lineup, just dominated the strike zone.”

The Twins had at least two baserunners in seven of their eight innings, and the bottom four hitters in the lineup — Willi Castro, Ty France, Lee and Vázquez — combined for eight hits, three walks, five runs and four RBI.

“Our guys were very prepared, very focused and pretty relentless in the way we were looking for a certain pitch in a certain spot,” Baldelli said. “I was really proud of that. I thought that was fantastic.”

Joe Ryan didn’t have his cleanest game, giving up three walks, four hits and three runs (two earned) in five innings, but he wasn’t alone. There was a list of early miscues.

With a runner on first base and two outs in the second inning, Alan Roden hit a flare into right field off Ryan. Matt Wallner didn’t make a great jump on the ball and attempted to dive for it. Wallner came up empty, the ball bouncing past him, which allowed Ernie Clements to score from first base.

Toronto scored two runs in the third inning after Carlos Correa committed his fifth error of the season, matching his total from last year. With a runner on first base, Correa made a sliding stop on a ground ball and flung a wide throw to second base.

Alejandro Kirk and George Springer responded with successive run-scoring hits, both in two-strike counts. After Ryan struck out Nathan Lukes, he started walking off the mound before he realized it was only the second out of the inning.

Down by a run in the bottom of the third inning, Castro and France supplied a pair of two-out singles. With Lee in the batter’s box, France was picked off first base by Kirk, the Blue Jays’ catcher.

Lee opened the next inning with a solo homer off starter Bowden Francis, who leads the American League with eight losses. Vázquez followed with his majestic blast, on a seven-pitch at-bat where he saw six fastballs. It was the Twins’ second set of back-to-back homers this season.

“Some slow stuff early, I felt like,” Ryan said. “We just stayed on it. We’re just playing good, solid, consistent baseball. Never a doubt there.”

Said Lee, who extended his hitting streak to 10 games: “We have a good offense. We’re in every game. We bounce back. If they come back, then we bounce back again. We have guys that can hit the long ball. Today, it was two guys that don’t necessarily hit a bunch of them, so that was kind of cool, but we can do it.”

BOXSCORE: Twins 6, Toronto 3

MLB standings

It was all Twins once they regained their lead. The Blue Jays had only two baserunners after the third inning. A slick double play started when Correa shoveled the ball to second base with his glove erased one of the runners.

In the fifth inning, after the Blue Jays inserted righty reliever Erik Swanson with two runners on base, France bashed an RBI double off the right field wall. Swanson walked two more batters in the inning, including Byron Buxton with the bases loaded. Buxton drew a career-high three walks.

“I liked what we did this series,” Baldelli said. “I think it was our team adjusting and getting better as the series went on because we knew what we were facing. We don’t play these guys that often, but I liked that we were able to take care of business.”