With 165 home runs, the Minnesota Twins have already shattered the major league record for long balls before the All-Star break.
So now there’s a new question: How high can they go with two more games left before the break?
Right-hander Jesse Chavez (3-3, 2.97 ERA) gets the start for the Texas Rangers on Saturday afternoon and might just be the right guy to try and cool down the Twins’ hot bats.
Minnesota had a season-high 20 hits, including a team-record-tying 13 for extra bases and a team-record nine doubles, in a 15-6 victory over the Rangers in Friday night’s series opener in Minneapolis.
The Twins also smacked four home runs, the 11th time this season they have hit four or more homers in a game. Luiz Arraez hit the first one to break the previous record of 161 home runs hit before the All-Star Game set by the New York Yankees last season.
Chavez is 2-0 with a 2.35 ERA in 11 games and three career starts against the Twins. He has been even more effective at Target Field, where he has compiled a 1-0 record and a 0.49 ERA in four games and two starts.
“We’ve got two more games (before the break),” Texas manager Chris Woodward said Friday after the Rangers lost for the fifth time in their past six games. “We’ve got Chavez going tomorrow, and hopefully he can get us going and get us a win tomorrow.”
Minnesota, which improved to 27-14 at home, will counter with right-hander Michael Pineda (5-4, 4.78 ERA), who comes in off a 10-3 victory in Chicago against the White Sox on June 29. He gave up one run on four hits over six innings while striking out eight.
Pineda is 0-4 with a 5.66 ERA in six career starts against Texas. However, this is the first time he’ll be facing the Rangers with the Minnesota offense backing him up.
“The numbers that we’ve put up to this point, some of them are unbelievable,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli acknowledged. “We’ll give the guys credit. They earned it.”
Nine players have hit 10 or more home runs for the Twins, with two others, Byron Buxton and Marwin Gonzalez, just one away from hitting double digits. Outfielder Max Kepler leads the team with 21, followed by Eddie Rosario with 20.
“(This lineup is) really good, one to nine,” second baseman Jonathan Schoop, who hit his 14th home run to go along with two doubles in Friday night’s opener, told MLB.com. “(Not just) one to nine — one to 13 can do damage. Anyone you throw into the lineup is going to contribute.”
“We’ve been doing it in a lot of different ways,” Baldelli said of his team’s power depth. “You can point to basically every guy that we have for some really impressive contributions.
“I haven’t seen many performances like it, and we’ve done it time after time. It doesn’t change the way we prepare, it doesn’t change the guy’s mindsets. No one gets a big head in any way. We just show up and do our jobs.”