Twins hit four home runs, knock out Garrett Crochet in second inning in 13-6 victory over Red Sox

La Velle E. Neal III, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Apr 13, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — What presented itself as a concerning weakness now appears to have become an indomitable strength,

How can you conclude something otherwise when Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez were tamed last week and, on Monday, Boston’s Garret Crochet was ambushed and taken to the woodshed?

Suddenly, the Twins can hit left-handers. Good left-handers.

Nine Twins went to the plate in the first inning. Ten batted in the second inning. They took an 11-0 lead and cruised to a 13-6 victory at Target Field. There were walks, solid base hits and long balls. All off Crochet, who finished second to Skubal in AL Cy Young Award voting following last season.

Crochet suffered the worst outing of his career, giving up 11 runs, 10 earned, on nine hits and three walks. He got five outs.

The Red Sox have been around a while, since 1901. It was the 54th time a Boston pitcher has given up 11 or more runs in an outing. But Crotchet is the first Red Sox pitcher ever to allow 11 or more runs in fewer than two innings.

The laugher enabled the Twins to win for the seventh time in eight games to improve to an American League-best 10-7 on the still very young season. Against left-handed starters, the Twins have evened their record to 5-5.

Twins hitters looked prepared to face Crochet, being aggressive at the right times. They took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI double by Luke Keaschall and an RBI single by Ryan Jeffers. Jeffers scored on Brooks Lee’s bases-loaded infield single. Victor Caratini also scored on the play as Boston shortstop Trevor Story attempted to flip the ball out of his glove, but the glove came off his hand and the ball rolled away.

It was just the warmup act for the second inning.

Jeffers’s RBI single made it a 5-0 lead. Josh Bell socked a two-run double. Caratini made it 10-0 with a first-pitch homer into the second deck in left, his first home run with the Twins.

Caratini’s no-doubter was estimated at 423 feet, But No. 9 hitter Ryan Kreidler, called up over the weekend to replace the injured Royce Lewis, walloped one into the same region as Caratini’s blast and was estimated at 438 feet. That ended Crochet’s evening.

Byron Buxton and Jeffers added solo blasts in the fifth inning off Boston rookie right-hander Ryan Watson. Buxton’s was his 85th career homer at Target Field, passing Max Kepler for the most all-time at the ballpark.

The explosion made things easier for Twins right-hander Bailey Ober, who gave up four earned runs over six innings. His fastball averaged 89.4 miles per hour, which was above his average of 88.6 mph entering the game. He used his slider and sweeper effectively.

Ober gave up three runs in the third inning, including a two-run homer by Jarren Duran. Boston started the sixth inning with three consecutive singles to score another run, but Ober got out of the inning by inducing a double-play grounder from Marcelo Mayer before striking out Carlos Narváez — Ober’s seventh strikeout of the game.

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