SEATTLE — Most good traveling acts save their biggest hits for the encore. The Luis and Buck Show prefers to get right to work.
Luis Arraez lined the game's first pitch into center field for a single, and Byron Buxton sent a 3-and-2 fastball over the center field wall, giving the Twins a quick start that three hours later turned into a 3-2 victory over the Mariners at T-Mobile Park.
Of course, fast starts are something of a Twins specialty this year. Buxton's homer on Monday, his sixth in the past six days, brought home the Twins' 50th and 51st first-inning runs of the season, the most in the American League. And those two players atop the batting order are a big reason why, of course.
Arraez is a .399 career hitter (61-for-153) in the first inning, and is hitting .421 in the inning this season. And five of Buxton's 18 home runs, including three since Thursday, have come in the first inning.
"There's not an added emphasis on facing a (pitcher) the first time though, but that's a great sign," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of the Twins' best inning, in which they've outscored their opponents by 22 runs. "As the outing goes on, you make adjustments and figure it out and have a chance to get to good starters."
That's how it seems like it should work, and the Twins did indeed wear out Mariners starter Chris Flexen over his five innings of work, putting at least two runners on base in four of them. But Flexen held them to 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position, and Minnesota never scored off him again.
Only Max Kepler's ground-ball single to right in the seventh inning off lefthander Ryan Borucki allowed the Twins to add another run, and it turned out to be a critical one, because the Mariners managed to score once off Twins starter Chris Archer and once off reliever Jharel Cotton.
Archer, after back-to-back five-inning starts, pitched only four in the cool (mid-50s) Seattle evening, allowing only four hits and two walks. But two of the singles came after Dylan Moore's swing collided with Gary Sanchez's glove in the third inning, interference that allowed Moore to reach first base. Jesse Winker lined a single to right, and Ty France hit a hard grounder that Gio Urshela knocked down but could not handle, a run-scoring infield hit.
Cotton, the third of six Twins relievers, left a first-pitch fastball high in the strike zone for Taylor Trammel, who pummeled it to straightaway center, his second home run of the season.
But Seattle never managed to tie the score, with Emilio Pagan earning his ninth save in 12 opportunities.
____
