Twins mop up Mariners again; Eddy Julien is baseball's hottest hitter
The Twins won their 50th game of the season Wednesday night – a 6-3 win over the Seattle Mariners – and rookie Eddy Julien continued his July tear as baseball's hottest hitter.
Julien went 2-for-2 with a homer, single and two walks. Julien has been baseball's best hitter in July, slashing .531/.615/.1.094 with five homers, three doubles, four walks, seven RBIs and 10 runs scored. His July batting average (.531) and OPS (1.709) are the best in the majors.
This man is 𝗢𝗡 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗘 🔥
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) July 20, 2023
Julien goes yard for the second night in a row! #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/SGCpQOnlFP
Max Kepler also stayed hot with two hits including his 14th homer of the season. It came just one at-bat after Julien went deep in the fifth inning.
The Twins got a masterful pitching performance from Kenta Maeda. The veteran right-hander had allowed just two hits and one run while striking out nine batters through six innings.
But after giving up a single with one out in the seventh, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli pulled Maeda, who had thrown only 80 pitches, and replaced him with Griffin Jax. Jax immediately got ahead of Eugenio Suarez 1-2 before Suarez unloaded with a two-run homer to tie the game 3-3.
The Twins reclaimed the lead in the eighth inning as Max Kepler scored from third base on a wild pitch by Seattle right-hander Andres Munoz.
In the ninth, Alex Kirilloff, who had struck out swinging his first four at-bats of the night, took Devin Sweet deep to the opposite field for a two-run homer and a 6-3 Twins lead. Kirilloff has homered in three of the last four games.
AK loves to show off that 𝗢𝗣𝗣𝗢 𝗣𝗢𝗣 💥#MNTwins | #MLB pic.twitter.com/RsQgibsdU9
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) July 20, 2023
Sweet was making his MLB debut, having been called up from Double-A.
Note: Byron Buxton was kept out of the lineup for a second night in a row.
Up next: Twins at Mariners, Thursday at 2:40 p.m. CT.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.