Larnach's grand slam leads Twins to 14-6 win over Rockies

Sat, Sep 30, 2023
MLB News (AP)

DENVER (AP) - Trevor Larnach hit his first career grand slam, one of Minnesota's four home runs, and the playoff-bound Twins beat the Colorado Rockies 14-6 on Saturday night.

Edouard Julien had three hits, including his 16th home run, and Max Kepler and Matt Wallner also went deep for AL Central Division champion Minnesota.

Elehuris Montero, Sean Bouchard and Brenton Doyle homered for the Rockies (58-103), who will not win at least 60 games for the first time in the club's 31-season history.

The Twins sent Emilio Pagan to the mound first, less than 24 hours after he picked up the save in Friday night's 7-6 win. He pitched one inning before Chris Paddack took over in his second appearance since having Tommy John surgery on May 18, 2022.

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Paddock (1-0) gave up two hits and struck out four in three complete innings, his longest outing since going 5 1/3 innings on May 2, 2022, which was the last time he recorded a win.

Colorado opened with reliever Matt Koch and after one inning he gave way to Karl Kauffmann (2-5), who was roughed up for seven hits and eight runs over 4 1/3 innings.

Wallner had an RBI double in the second and scored on Christian Vazquez's single to center to make it 2-0.

The Twins padded the lead in the third when Larnach hit a two-out grand slam just over the scoreboard in right field, his second homer in as many nights. The bases were loaded when Alex Kirilloff hit a ground-rule double, Kauffmann hit Donovan Solano, and Wallner walked.

Minnesota blew it open in the sixth on an RBI double by Julien, a wild pitch that brought home Michael A. Taylor and Kepler's three-run homer, his 24th of the season.

Julien hit a two-run shot in the seventh to make it 14-0 but Montero and Bouchard homered on consecutive pitches and Doyle hit a two-run homer off Dallas Keuchel.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Twins: INF Jorge Polanco was out of the lineup with right ankle soreness that took him out in the sixth inning of Friday night's game.

UP NEXT

Minnesota will send RHP Bailey Ober (8-6, 3.53) to the mound against Rockies RHP Chase Anderson (1-6, 5.42).

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