
Twins avoid series sweep with 6-3 victory over Blue Jays
Brooks Lee and Christian Vázquez hit back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning and the Minnesota Twins beat the Toronto Blue Jays 6-3 on Sunday to avoid a sweep and snap a three-game skid.
Minnesota trailed 3-2 when Lee led off against Bowden Francis with his fifth homer. Vázquez followed with his second and the Twins were never behind again.
Joe Ryan (7-2) allowed three runs — two earned — and four hits in five innings to help the Twins end the Blue Jays' four-game winning streak. Brock Stewart, Cole Sands and Griffin Jax all followed with a scoreless inning. Jhoan Duran pitched the ninth for his 10th save in 11 opportunities.
Alan Roden doubled in a run in the second inning to give Toronto the lead, but Minnesota answered in its half with an RBI groundout from Vázquez and Trevor Larnach's sacrifice fly for a 2-1 lead.
Alejandro Kirk had an RBI single and George Springer doubled in a run to put Toronto ahead 3-2 in the third.
Mason Fluharty, who got the final two outs in the fourth, left with two on and one out in the fifth in favor of Erik Swanson. Ty France greeted Swanson with an RBI single for a 5-3 lead and Lee walked to load the bases. Swanson struck out Vázquez looking before Byron Buxton walked to set the final margin.
Francis (2-8) allowed four runs and five hits and five walks in 3 1/3 innings. Fluharty gave up two runs in an inning.
Toronto (35-30) was trying for its first sweep against Minnesota (35-30) at Target Field since 2013.
Vázquez's shot to left after Lee hit one out to right gave the Twins back-to-back home runs for the second time this season and the first time at home.
The Twins have walked 164 batters — fewest in the majors and 31 less than the Blue Jays, who walked eight in the finale.
The Blue Jays hadn't announced a starter for the first of three in St. Louis beginning Monday. The Cardinals will start RHP Andre Pallante (4-3, 4.91).
The Twins will host the Rangers for three games beginning Tuesday. Neither team announced a starter.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Newsweek
31 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Vikings Coach Breaks Silence on JJ McCarthy's Progress
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Minnesota Vikings and second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy are a major topic of discussion within the NFL. Leading up to the 2025 season, there are many questions swirling about whether or not he can be a true franchise quarterback. Sam Darnold put together a strong season in 2024. He led the Vikings to a 14-3 record, but the run came up short in the playoffs. Minnesota lost in the Wild Card round to the Los Angeles Rams. Heading into the offseason, keeping Darnold was viewed as a legitimate option. However, he chose to sign with the Seattle Seahawks on a three-year, $100.5 million contract. J.J. McCarthy #9 of the Minnesota Vikings participates in a drill during training camp on August 02, 2024 in Eagan, Minnesota. J.J. McCarthy #9 of the Minnesota Vikings participates in a drill during training camp on August 02, 2024 in Eagan, Minnesota. Photo byAfter Darnold chose to leave town, rumors circled around the Vikings and future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers. He was reportedly very interested in playing for Minnesota, but the team opted to stick with McCarthy and pass on Rodgers. Read more: Vikings Emerge as Possible Landing Spot for Packers Star Now, all of the pressure is on the young quarterback to lead the team to wins. He hasn't taken a single NFL regular season snap, but has been handed the keys to the franchise. There is no denying the elite talent and potential that McCarthy possesses. There is a good chance he could live up to the hype and keep the Vikings in contention. But, there is also a chance that it's too early and he could fail. Minnesota offensive coordinator Wes Phillips spoke out on Wednesday and offered a major update about the second-year quarterback and his progression. "I think (J.J.) is right where he needs to be right now," Phillips said. "And right where we thought he'd be. I don't think he'd come up here and say he mastered the offense. Every rep is a learning rep." Read more: Vikings Fans Will Be Livid Over This Stunning Prediction It's clear that the Vikings are still confident in their young quarterback. On the outside, there are a lot of questions, but the team feels comfortable with the situation. That is good news for Minnesota. McCarthy does have the luxury of having Justin Jefferson to work with. He also has Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson. Aaron Jones in the backfield will take a lot of pressure off of the young signal caller as well. While there is undoubtedly a lot of pressure on McCarthy, the Vikings have put him in the best situation possible. Hopefully, he's able to come out and prove the team right for passing on Rodgers or any other option and giving him the chance to prove himself in 2025. For more Minnesota Vikings and NFL news, head over to Newsweek Sports.


Fox Sports
33 minutes ago
- Fox Sports
Last Night in Baseball: Marcelo Mayer's first multi-homer game powers Red Sox
There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves. That's why we're here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days' games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn't have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Mayer goes deep twice, Red Sox win The Red Sox have been having plenty of issues in 2025, but even if their season doesn't end up going anywhere because of them, there are still plenty of reasons to watch. For one, their "Big Three" prospects are now all MLB rookies, on the big-league roster at the same time: Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony, and Wednesday night's hero Marcelo Mayer. Mayer, in a game the Red Sox won just 4-3 over the Rays, hit two homers – his first multi-homer game, and his second and third homers of the season. Mayer was called up and made his debut on May 24, so he's just 15 games in at this point, but after those two shots, he's up to a line of .250/.313/.523, good for an OPS+ of 129. Not a bad start for a 22-year-old who spent just 43 games at Triple-A before coming to the bigs. Whether Mayer sticks in the majors in the long run in 2025 is still a bit up for debate, as he was brought there to fill in for the injured Alex Bregman, who is expected to return from his quad strain in July. The more he hits over the next few weeks, the more difficult it will be to send him back to Worcester rather than finding at-bats for him in Boston's lineup, however. Cutch passes Clemente on Pirates' all-time HR list Andrew McCutchen was originally drafted by the Pirates back in 2005, and then spent his entire pro career with them as a homegrown star until he was dealt to the Giants before the 2018 season. Cutch would then be traded to the Yankees prior to signing first with the Phillies and then the Brewers, before reuniting with his original club before the 2023 season. A series of one-year deals have kept him in Pittsburgh since, and while he's not the offensive force he once was, he can still put up a quality season, and move himself up the franchise's all-time lists in the process. On Wednesday, McCutchen hit his sixth homer of the year, no. 241 in a Pirates uniform, and it pushed him past Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente into sole possession of third-place on the Pirates' all-time homer list. Given McCutchen is 38 years old, that's probably as far as he's going to get in the rankings: Ralph Kiner is in second with 301 long balls, and Willie Stargell is very comfortably in first with 475. Still! Third place is nothing to sneeze at, for any organization, never mind one that had Stargell, Kiner, Clemente, Barry Bonds and Dave Parker – the only one of those that isn't a Hall of Famer is the one who happens to be MLB's all-time home run leader. Luzardo gets back on track Jesús Luzardo started the season 5-0 with a 2.15 ERA over his first 11 starts, striking out 77 batters in 60 innings of work. He was basically as good as that ERA said, too, but things came undone in the next two starts. Luzardo allowed 21 hits and 20 earned runs over just 5.2 innings against the Brewers and Blue Jays. His earned run average shot all the way up to 4.46 for the season. On Wednesday, though, Luzardo returned to form, and kept one of MLB's best offenses quiet. Luzardo held the Chicago Cubs to just one run over six innings, and more impressively, struck out 10 batters for the fourth time this season. It'll take a little longer to fully undo the damage from those two starts – his ERA dropped to 4.23 – but at least he helped the Phillies win a ballgame again. Judge homers for third straight game Aaron Judge's solo home run in the seventh inning added some cushion to the Yankees lead over the Royals, as they were already up 5-0. His 25th shot of the year came on the heels of a two-homer game Sunday against Boston and a 469-foot shot in the series opener against Kansas City on Tuesday night. For those keeping score at home, that's four homers in three games, and the two-time MVP has eight RBIs over those contests, as well. This marks the first time this season that Judge has hit home runs in three consecutive games. He's inching closer to becoming the AL's homer leader, too, as he's now within one of Seattle Mariners' catcher Cal Raleigh. Buxton out-Judges Judge Remember that mention of Tuesday's 469-foot Aaron Judge homer from a couple of paragraphs back? As discussed in this space on Wednesday, that was the third-longest homer of the season. Emphasis on the past tense there now, as the Twins' Byron Buxton knocked it to fourth place with one swing of the bat the very next day. Buxton's blast went 479 feet, the second-longest home run of the season by anyone, trailing behind only Mike Trout's mammoth 484-foot shot from April. Here's one of the beautiful things about baseball: being big and strong can add to your power, yes, but it's not the only reason that someone can hit a titanic homer. Judge is listed at 6-foot-7 and 282 lbs. Trout is 6-foot-2, 235 lbs., and built like a linebacker. Byron Buxton is also 6-2, but listed at 45 lbs. less than Trout. And yet! Thanks to his wrists and a beautiful, efficient swing, Buxton hit a ball five feet short of Trout's impossible shot, and 10 feet further than Judge's eye-popping dinger. That's baseball, baby. Rockies almost win, until they didn't (again) It's been a bad week for the Rockies. They came off of a sweep of the Marlins only to be swept by the Mets, and now the Giants are one game away from a four-game sweep of Colorado. On Tuesday, the Rox blew it in the ninth, but on Wednesday, it only took until the eighth for things to fall apart. The Rockies entered the top of the eighth up 6-3, but then they loaded the bases and walked Casey Schmitt, making it 6-4. Mike Yastrzemski followed up with a double that scored Heliot Ramos and Dominic Smith – 6-6. Things got worse before the inning was over. Schmitt, still on third, attempted to score on a sacrifice bunt by Tyler Fitzgerald. He was originally called out, but the Giants challenged, and the call was overturned: 7-6, Giants. San Francisco would score three more in the top of the ninth, with Schmitt and Yasztremski responsible for two of those runs via singles, and the Rockies couldn't muster enough offense in the bottom of the frame to come back. They're now 12-55, with the most losses for any team through 67 games. Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily! FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience Marcelo Mayer Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball recommended Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
A curious major-league fib, plus: Alcantara starting to round into form
The Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic's MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox. New developments in the Tyler Skaggs case bring a former teammate's name into the proceedings. Plus: The curious case of the missing career, a Q&A with our player poll editor, and Ken says Sandy Alcantara is getting closer to being, well, Sandy Alcantara. I'm Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup! When Tyler Skaggs died in 2019, it shook the entire league. Every new detail in the nearly six years since has made the story a little more tragic, a little more shocking. Former Angels PR director Eric Kay is serving a 22-year prison sentence for his role in providing Skaggs with the opioids that led to his overdose. Advertisement Now there's a civil lawsuit between Skaggs' family and the Angels organization, in which the family insists the team holds some responsibility in the matter. Today, new information has come to light, further muddying the waters, and bringing another known name into the conversation: current Reds pitcher Wade Miley. From that story, by Sam Blum: 'On May 30, the Angels filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the Skaggs's claims should be dismissed. It contained a deposition from the former agent for Skaggs, in which he testified Skaggs had told him he sometimes received prescription drugs from pitcher Wade Miley. Skaggs and Miley were teammates on the Arizona Diamondbacks at the time.' It's a complicated case, made more so by the fact that 'hundreds of pages of testimony, including portions of confidential depositions from key witnesses, were also posted publicly to the court's online portal last week, apparently in error.' Blum's piece has a lot more details. It's messy, it's sad and this much is sure: There's no happy ending to this story. From my most recent column, with Eno Sarris: The temptation is not to get carried away with Miami Marlins right-hander Sandy Alcantara producing back-to-back quality starts for the first time this season. His opponents were the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates, the teams with the two worst offenses in the major leagues. Marlins manager Clayton McCullough, however, saw a difference in what he called 'the quality of Sandy's throws.' So did a rival official who witnessed Alcantara's start in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. The official, granted anonymity for his candor, said, 'I walked away saying he is about three or four starts away from being the Sandy of old.' If Alcantara continues pitching on five days' rest, as he has for the majority of the season coming off Tommy John surgery, he would make eight starts before the trade deadline on July 31. By that time, a reemergence as the Sandy of old could make him what many at the start of the season expected him to become — the best starting pitcher available. 'For him, the walk rate (early in the season) was so uncharacteristic. The ability to execute at a high level, which he was terrific at pre-injury, was not the same,' McCullough said. 'So while the stuff was very good — the velo was good, the shapes of his pitches were fine — his spray was just a lot larger, especially to left. I think it was just the finish to the throws. Advertisement 'A couple of bullpens ago, he really focused on being glove-side with his work and being intentional there. Which I think in turn has got him driving the ball through the mitt and finishing his pitches.' Examining the shapes and velocities of Alcantara's pitches, his stuff has indeed mostly recovered since his surgery in October 2023. His changeup doesn't have quite as much drop, and neither does his curve, but his fastballs are mostly back, and overall his stuff is there. Stuff+ is a stat that sums up the physical qualities of his pitches, and most of his pitches are back to pre-surgery quality. More here. It's been a big week for 25-year-old Red Sox rookie pitcher Hunter Dobbins. Here's the timeline: June 8: Dobbins tells Gabrielle Starr of the Boston Globe, 'If the Yankees were the last team to give me a contract, I'd retire.' But in that same story, he also says: 'Andy Pettitte and my dad were really good friends. … He was actually drafted twice by the Yankees. Signed with them his last year and then he got traded over to the Diamondbacks.' That night, Dobbins picked up the win over the Yankees. Score one for the kid. June 10 (Tuesday): Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes this article, in which he says, more or less, 'Nuh-uh.' He contacted members of the Yankees and D-Backs front offices from those days and found nothing on Lance Dobbins. There was also this: 'Pettitte, reached by phone, said neither he nor anyone he asked in his family remembers Lance Dobbins.' Baseball Reference shows (the elder) Dobbins playing for three teams in 1996-97, but all of three were independent teams. The Diamondbacks did have minor-league teams in those years, ahead of the big-league team's inaugural season (1998). But I checked all of those rosters; Dobbins isn't on any of them. Yesterday (the younger) Dobbins was given a chance to address the situation. His answer? 'I don't go and fact-check my dad.' Advertisement In summary: This was the story he had been told; why would anyone think their dad wasn't telling them the truth? But — with the caveat that there might be some explanation yet to come to light — it sure doesn't seem like Lance Dobbins was drafted by the Yankees, nor that he played in the Diamondbacks org. Stay tuned, I guess? In the meantime, Dobbins' next start is scheduled for Saturday. Against whom? The Yankees, of course. Yesterday's Windup was all about our five anonymous player poll stories. Today, we have a Q&A with editor Kaci Borowski, who handles all the heavy lifting of making these things shine. What has been the biggest challenge in making these successful? One is that baseball players are, unlike their basketball counterparts, generally less inclined to speak on more controversial topics, so you really have to think about what types of questions they'd be likely to answer and shape those in a way that would get a good response. The second is that it takes a lot of coordination to make this work. We have a large staff of national and local writers, and keeping the information organized takes some planning. There's just so much data. Truly mind-numbing amounts of data. Do you have a favorite question we've ever asked? Least-favorite? In 2019, we asked pitchers who they would least like to see charging the mound and vice versa for the hitters. The answers we got were really amusing and surprisingly honest. My least favorite questions are, unfortunately, often the ones our readers ask for the most. We've tried to do the 'most overrated player' question a few times and the players don't really take to that one — we end up with a small sample size and a lot of names without a lot of justification. It can be a little awkward, and it doesn't always provide an enlightening outcome. What's the question you can't ask, but wish you could? I can't just be giving out free story ideas on main here, Levi. But out of respect and appreciation for the kind players who take the time and answer our poll honestly, I will give a response and go with one I think they'd never answer anyway: Which of your fellow baseball players pisses you off the most? They'd need to give specifics, though. I'd need quotes for sure. How have you seen these evolve over the years we've been doing them? One thing we've made a priority in these more recent polls is making sure we're talking to a wide range of voters with different backgrounds, years of league experience and primary languages so we can (attempt to!) better reflect the attitudes and perspectives of those who currently make up the sport. It's not a perfect exercise, but I think we've made some good strides. Britt Ghiroli has an insightful one today: What do baseball families do to juggle school while parenting on a baseball schedule? One day after the Giants placed third baseman Matt Chapman on the IL, catcher Patrick Bailey joined him. That hasn't stopped San Francisco from consecutive late-innings comebacks. The Red Sox and Twins pulled off a trade, with Boston acquiring reliever Jorge Alcala for a minor-leaguer. Tigers starter Jackson Jobe is having Tommy John surgery. The epidemic continues. Hot birds vs. hot birds: The blue ones emerged victorious, sweeping the red ones. Keith Law's Mock Draft 2.0 is here, with a new No. 1 pick. There had been some suspicion that Jesús Luzardo was tipping his pitches. He made some adjustments, and held the Cubs to one run, striking out 10 in six innings yesterday. Speaking of which … On the pods: On 'Rates & Barrels,' Eno, Jed and DVR discussed what info hitters might want from external sources when preparing for opposing pitchers. Prefer video? Here you go! Most-clicked in our last newsletter: The first Player Poll story, where we learned which teams and managers players do and don't like to play for. *against the Rockies, though. 📫 Love The Windup? Check out The Athletic's other newsletters.