Byron Buxton drives in five runs as Twins trample A’s in Sacramento

WEST SACRAMENTO, CALIF. – The Twins have discovered a team that handles bases-loaded situations even worse than they do. It paid off Monday night.

With a Twin on every base, Ty France singled home their first two runs in the second inning and Byron Buxton singled home two more runs in the sixth. The Twins added six more runs on the night and captured their first-ever game at Sutter Health Park, 10-4 over the don’t-call-them-Sacramento Athletics.

Two bases-loaded hits in one game? Not bad for a team that has only eight all season.

Especially in comparison with the A’s. The “home” team (playing in temporary, but decidedly minor league, quarters) has only six all season and an MLB-worst .143 batting average in such advantageous situations.

And it played out to the Twins’ benefit in the fifth inning, “the biggest moment of the game,” according to manager Rocco Baldelli. “It didn’t start too great. It finished with probably one of the more impressive pitch-making sequences that you’ll see. I told [starter Joe Ryan] it was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen him do. That fifth inning impressed the heck out of me.”

Former Twin Brent Rooker opened the inning with a single. Ryan then hit Tyler Soderstrom with a pitch and walked Shea Langeliers, loading the bases. Then, as though increasing the degree of difficulty, he threw three straight balls to CJ Alexander.

“I was like, ‘This is a big situation,’” Ryan said. “‘I should throw a … strike.’"

Nah, Ryan clearly had the A’s where he wanted them. First, he battled back and forced Alexander to pop up. Then he needed only three pitches to get Luis Urias to do the same. And Ryan finished off the Athletics’ futile rally by getting Drew Avans to hit a routine grounder to second baseman Kody Clemens.

“Sick!” said Buxton, who tied a career high with five RBI. “For him to have those bases loaded, nobody out, and just kind of bear down, and everybody knows Joe. You can see him lock it in a little bit more. And that was fun. Seeing him dominate like that, that was fun. Real fun.”

Still, it was an odd start for Ryan, who walked a season-high three A’s and tied his season low by striking out only four. He threw 96 pitches to get through five innings, not a clean inning among them, though he blamed some inconsistency by home plate umpire Lance Barrett for part of that.

BOXSCORE: Twins 10, Athletics 4

MLB standings

“The [automatic ball/strike system] needs to be here. These guys are so bad in big situations,” Ryan complained, believing missed calls contributed to his three-run fourth inning, when Lawrence Butler homered to deep center field. Without those calls, “I go six [innings] there probably for sure, and save another bullpen arm.”

The Twins bullpen was its usual sturdy self anyway against the last-place A’s, who have lost seven straight games and 22 of their past 25. A’s hitters managed only one hit over the final four innings.

Besides, the Twins were facing one of their favorite foils in a ballpark he hates. Luis Severino, who owns an 0-5 record and 6.99 ERA in the the California state capital, gave up both of the Twins’ bases-loaded hits, and six of the seven runs they drove in with two outs.

Somehow, he’s even worse against the Twins. In five career starts — including, memorably, the 2017 wild-card playoff game at Yankee Stadium in which he was removed after retiring only one batter — Severino has given up 21 runs in 17⅔ innings, a 10.70 ERA.

Severino gave up doubles to Carlos Correa, Buxton and Brooks Lee in the second inning, and nine hits overall, giving the Twins a terrific first impression of the ballpark, home to the Class AAA Sacramento River Cats. It allowed them to walk in triumph to their center-field clubhouse.

“There were a bunch of Twins fans in the stands over by our dugout, too. You win, and you’ve got people having full-on conversations with you from the third row and the eighth row and the 12th row,” Baldelli said of the announced crowd of 8,922, the second-smallest gathering of the season in Sacramento. “It was cool because it’s nice to have some support on the other side of the country.”