Twins escape disaster

Twins 4
White Sox 3
10 innings

My 1st Twins game of 2023 had an eventful start, and an eventful finish, with a lot of nothing in between. 

Pablo Lopez made his 1st home start for the Twins, and it was ugly early. A leadoff single was followed by a horrible throwing error by Lopez. Then a walk loaded the bases and a double scored 2. Before an out was recorded. 

But after this, Lopez was unbelievable. He retired the next 3 Sox to get out of that first inning...then got his next 20 opponents out too. It was a dominant turnaround performance.

The Sox lead didn't last either. Donovan Solano singled off former Twins malcontent Lance Lynn, then Byron Buxton sent his 100th career homerun into the bullpen to tie the game. In the bottom of the 2nd Michael Taylor hit his 1st Twins homerun to almost the same spot for a 3-2 lead. 

But this was it til late in the game. Lynn was fairly dominant too, although the Twins did scratch out an occasional baserunner.

Lopez was lifted in a classic Rocco move with 2 outs in the 8th. It at least allowed for a standing ovation from a surprisingly small crowd. 80 degrees on April 11th and we can't draw more? 

Anyway, onto the 9th and Jhoan Duran. And after his elaborate intro had ended...he surrendered a game tying solo homerun on the 1st pitch to Luis Robert. Duran K'd the side from there, but we were off to extras after Christian Vazquez was thrown out at 3rd foolishly trying to take an extra base.

Griffin Jax did a nice job escaping the 10th without letting the free runner score. 
And as quickly as the Sox had tied it, the Twins ended it. Taylor layed down a bunt, the third baseman threw wildly to 1st and pinch runner Willi Castro trotted home with the winning run. 

The old sac bunt + throwing error trick. Gets em every time. 

So the Twins move to 7-4. Not bad considering the overall lack of hitting and already reoccurring injury issues. 

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