France belts walk-off homer to seal Twins' 16th win in 18 games
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MINNEAPOLIS -- Ty France has established himself as a valuable member of this Twins team, a reliable line-drive slasher. He’s exactly the guy they want at the plate when what you need is a single the other way.
On Friday, France showed another side. He powered up.
Facing the hard-throwing, hard-to-elevate Lucas Erceg, France hammered a one-out, two-run walk-off homer in the ninth inning to give the Twins a 3-1 win against the Royals at Target Field in the opener of a three-game series.
It was France’s fourth homer of the year, with three of them coming against Kansas City. And it was a no-doubter, flying off the bat at 107.1 mph and traveling a Statcast-projected 403 feet.
“I have a handful of at-bats off him, knew he was going to try to get in the zone early and then expand late, so just saw the first pitch up and went,” France said.
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Carlos Correa, making his return from the 7-day concussion injured list, beat out an infield single with one out, and France delivered the game-ender with a rocket shot to left-center field. It was his fifth career walk-off hit, but first walk-off home run.
“He knows what he’s trying to do, and I think he’s able to really focus well in those particular types of situations,” said manager Rocco Baldelli. “Normally I’d say he doesn’t try to do too much. He just hits line drives all around the field because that’s what he normally does, but sometimes you just catch one out front and hammer it. And he hammered it.”
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The Royals took a quick lead on Pablo López in the first inning, thanks to an RBI double by Cavan Biggio. Kansas City threatened again repeatedly throughout López’s outing, but couldn’t push across another run against him or a string of Minnesota relievers -- ending the game 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
Meanwhile, the Twins got that run back in short order when Correa led off the bottom of the second with a homer. That was all Minnesota needed until France secured the Twins’ 16th win in their past 18 games.