The Minnesota Twins gave their fans at Target Field on Tuesday night at least one good memory from the last month of this season, as they powered their way past the Kansas City Royals by a score of 7-4.
After the Royals got an RBI single from Lorenzo Cain in the top of the second to take a 1-0 lead, Chris Parmelee answered by leading off the bottom half of the inning with his fourth home run of the year to tie the game at one. In the bottom of the fifth, Denard Span's triple with two outs plated Matt Tolbert to make the score 2-1 in favor of Minnesota. Ben Revere followed that up with another triple to bring home Span and make the score 3-1, but Revere was thrown out at the plate attempting to stretch it into an inside-the-park home run.
The Royals scratched out another run to make the score 4-2 in the top of the sixth inning, but in the bottom of the sixth, the Twins really made their mark on this one. Danny Valencia, Parmelee, and Trevor Plouffe started the inning with three consecutive singles off of Royals' starter Sean O'Sullivan to load the bases with nobody out. O'Sullivan was then lifted for reliever Vin Mazzaro to face former French Resistance Fighter Rene Tosoni (™ Twinkie Town). Tosoni took Mazzaro's first pitch and turned it around for a grand slam to right field, making the score 7-2 in favor of the Twins.
Kansas City managed a couple of runs in the top of the ninth off of Joe Nathan, but got no closer than 7-4 as the Twins took home the victory.
The Twins will attempt to avoid becoming the second team in Minnesota history to lose 100 games when they play their 2011 season finale against the Royals on Wednesday night at Target Field. The first pitch for that one is again scheduled for 7:10 PM Central time, and the starting pitchers will be left-hander Bruce Chen (12-8, 3.98 ERA) for Kansas City and righty Carl Pavano (8-13, 4.48 ERA) for the Twins.