Tampa Bay Rays vs Minnesota Twins Match Player Stats On Jun 10, 2022

Byron Buxton homered twice for the second straight game and scored three times to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 9-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night in Minneapolis.

Buxton, who also went deep twice on Thursday in the Twins' 10-7 loss to the New York Yankees, became the fifth player in franchise history to have consecutive multi-homer games. He joined Harmon Killebrew, Don Mincher, Kirby Puckett and Eddie Rosario.

Minnesota's Carlos Correa had a homer, a double and a single to go along with two RBIs and two runs.

Devin Smeltzer (3-0) picked up the win after allowing three runs on four hits over six-plus innings. He walked three and struck out three.

Randy Arozarena hit an inside-the-park home run and Isaac Paredes and Vidal Brujan also homered for Tampa Bay, which had a three-game win streak snapped.

Drew Rasmussen (5-3) took the loss allowing seven runs (four earned) on nine hits over 4 1/3 innings. He walked two and struck out three.

Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Buxton hit a home run into the second deck down the left field line, the second consecutive game he homered in his first at-bat.

Tampa Bay tied it in the second inning on Parades' fifth homer of the season, a 406-foot drive to left.

The Twins then built a 7-1 lead with a six-hit, six-run fifth, sending 11 batters to the plate in the process. Buxton started the scoring with his 17th homer of the season into the bullpen in left-center. It was also his sixth home run in six games.

Tampa Bay cut it to 7-3 in the seventh when Arozarena circled the bases after his fly ball to the gap in right-center went over the glove of a leaping Nick Gordon and caromed off the wall back toward the infield for his seventh homer of the season. Brujan then hit the next pitch 352-feet just over the glove of Trevor Larnach into the flowerbed behind the left field fence for his first career home run.

The Rays closed within 7-4 in the eighth on an RBI groundout by Arozarena. The Twins answered with two runs in the bottom half on Correa's fifth home run of the season, a two-run shot into the bullpen in left-center.

--Field Level Media