TORONTO, ON — Luis Arráez went 4 for 4 with a walk, Gary Sánchez and Trevor Larnach homered and the Minnesota Twins beat the Toronto Blue Jays 8-6 Sunday.
Arráez leads baseball with a .358 batting average.
Six different players drove in a run as the Twins took two of three from the Blue Jays, cooling down a Toronto team that came into the series on an eight-game winning streak.
Sánchez hit a two-run homer off Jeremy Beasley in the eighth inning, his seventh of the season, and Larnach hit a solo blast off Adam Cimber in the seventh, his fourth of the year.
Twins right-hander Devin Smeltzer allowed two runs and four hits in four innings.
Jharel Cotton (2-1), Griffin Jax, Joe Smith, Jhoan Duran each worked one inning. Tyler Duffey got two outs in the ninth and Jovani Moran retired Bo Bichette to strand runners at the corners to earn his first career save.
George Springer hit the 50th leadoff home run of his career and Santiago Espinal made it close with a three-run home run off Duffey, but the Blue Jays lost for the fifth time in 18 games.
Alejandro Kirk and Matt Chapman added solo home runs for Toronto. Springer’s homer was his 11th, Kirk connected for the fifth time, Chapman hit his seventh, and Espinal hit his fourth.
Springer also started an inning-ending double play in the sixth, racing back to the warning track in center to catch Sánchez’s deep drive, then helping double Nick Gordon off second.
Not all of Toronto’s defense was so good. Minnesota took advantage of an error by Teoscar Hernández to score three in the first and rough up Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman (5-4).
With runners at first and second, Jorge Polanco hit a fly ball to right but Hernández couldn’t make the catch.
Later in the first, the Blue Jays missed a chance at the third out when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. appeared to lose Jose Miranda’s foul pop up in the sun. Miranda ended up hitting an RBI single as the Twins scored three in the first.
Neither Hernández nor Guerrero was wearing sunglasses in the first, but both had them on afterward.
Jermaine Palacios and Polanco each hit RBI singles in the second to put the Twins up 5-1.
Gausman allowed season highs of nine hits and five runs, three earned, in 3 2-3 innings. It was the shortest of Gausman’s 11 starts this season, and the first time he has failed to finish five innings.
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