Michael Wacha threw six innings of three-hit ball, and Kevin Kiermaier‘s RBI triple broke a 1-1 tie, helping the Tampa Bay Rays snap their two-game skid with a 5-3 win over the Minnesota Twins Friday night at Tropicana Field.
The Twins got out to an early 1-0 lead, as Jorge Polanco‘s solo homer with two outs in the first of Wacha, his 25th if the year, gave Minnesota the advantage, but after a 1-2-3 bottom of the first, Rays bats made an adjustment against Twins starter Randy Dobnak. Austin meadows led off the inning with a double, moving to third on a wild pitch, and scoring on the contact play when Randy Arozarena‘s grounder was not thrown home in time by Miguel Sano.
Kiermaier followed with a triple into the right-center field gap that allowed Arozarena to hustle around and break the tie, and a groundout by Diaz extended the lead to 3-1.
Tampa Bay added two more runs an inning later against Dobnak, with Joey Wendle singling to start the inning, scoring on a double by Nelson Cruz to make it 4-1, and Meadows drove in Cruz to make it a 5-1 game.
Wacha (3-4) allowed just one other run, also on a solo homer, this time by Ryan Jeffers in the fifth. Pete Fairbanks worked a scoreless seventh, before Minnesota got one more run off the Tampa Bay bullpen, this time on a two-out double by Polanco off David Robertson.
Andrew Kittredge worked around a two-out error by Taylor Walls in the ninth to earn his sixth save of the season.
The win allows the Rays to maintain a 6 1/2 game lead over New York in the American League East.
The Rays will look to guarantee a winning homestand with a victory Saturday, as Chris Archer (0-1, 4.35 ERA) takes ob Andrew Albers (1-0, 0.96 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 4:05.