Willie Calhoun went 2-for-4 and singled in designated runner Jonah Heim with the winning run in the 10th inning to give the Texas Rangers a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Thursday afternoon in Minneapolis.
Joey Gallo and Heim each homered and Isiah Kiner-Falefa had two hits and an RBI for Texas, which won three of the four games in the series and improved to 4-0 in extra-inning games. Taylor Hearn (1-1) picked up his first major league win with two innings of hitless relief and Josh Sborz picked up his first save with a 1-2-3 10th that included a pair of strikeouts.
Max Kepler homered and scored twice and Willians Astudillo went 3-for-5 with two RBIs for Minnesota, which fell to 0-7 in extra-inning games. Nick Gordon, the fifth overall pick of the 2014 draft, singled and walked in his major league debut and also stole two bases, becoming only the 13th player since 1901 to have multi stolen bases in a debut.
Tyler Duffey (0-1) suffered the loss.
Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first when Kepler homered to right-center, his first blast of the season.
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Texas bounced back to take a 2-1 lead in the second inning. Gallo led off with his fourth home run of the season, a towering drive to center that traveled an estimated 434 feet. Adolis Garcia followed with a double, advanced to third on a flyout by David Dahl and then scored on a bloop single down the right-field line by Kiner-Falefa.
The Twins regained the lead at 3-2 in the third on a two-run single by Astudillo, driving in Kepler who had walked and Byron Buxton who had singled and stole second.
The Rangers tied it in the seventh on Heim’s second home run of the season, a 408-foot drive to left-center just over the glove of a leaping Buxton.
Texas then took a 4-3 lead in the 10th when Calhoun singled to right, driving in Heim, who began the inning as the designated runner at second and went to third on a wild pitch by Duffey.
Buxton, the American League Player of the Month for April, left the game with a hip injury after pulling up while trying to beat out an infield grounder in the ninth.
–Field Level Media