Kody Clemens’ Sixth-Inning Homer Shut the Door on Texas

Kody Clemens had already helped Minnesota make the game uncomfortable for Texas. In the sixth inning, he made it unmistakably one-sided.

With two outs, Clemens sent a two-run homer to left-center against Gavin Collyer, bringing Luke Keaschall home and pushing the Twins’ lead to 10-2. Keaschall had singled with one out, Brooks Lee had then flown out, and Keaschall stole second during Clemens’ plate appearance before the ball left the park. It was a modest opening, properly exploited, followed by a very large punctuation mark.

Minnesota beat Texas 10-2 Friday night at Target Field. Clemens’ later contributions made an already difficult recovery increasingly remote for the Rangers, whose two early runs remained their only ones.

Work backward to the fourth inning and Clemens’ first important blow becomes clearer. Ryan Kreidler walked with one out after Emmanuel Rodríguez lined out. Keaschall doubled him home, then Lee popped out.

Clemens followed with a single that scored Keaschall, completing a two-run inning that stretched Minnesota’s lead to 8-2. Josh Bell walked afterward, but Ryan Jeffers struck out to end the inning. The Twins did not need a sprawling rally; two productive swings had done the work.

That is what made Clemens’ night significant within this game. His three hits did not arrive as meaningless decoration after Minnesota had already run away. The RBI single extended the damage in the fourth, and the homer removed whatever slim hope Texas might have carried into the late innings.

Clemens finished 3-for-4 with three RBIs and a run, with two of those hits driving in runs and the other extending the Twins’ six-run second.

Minnesota supplied plenty of help. Keaschall was the central engine, going 4-for-5 with a double, triple, three RBIs and three runs. In the second inning, his two-run triple followed a two-run single by Royce Lewis and an RBI bunt single from Kreidler.

Keaschall later scored on a wild pitch during Lee’s plate appearance, before Lee lined out and Clemens singled. The Twins sent 10 batters to the plate and scored six runs, producing the lead Clemens would later enlarge.

The middle innings mattered because Minnesota kept finding ways to turn one baserunner into something more. Keaschall’s fourth-inning double converted Kreidler’s walk. Clemens’ single brought Keaschall around. In the sixth, Keaschall’s single became a second-base runner and then the first half of Clemens’ two-run homer. Different innings presented different openings, but Texas repeatedly paid for failing to close them quickly.

Jacob deGrom’s four innings made that task easier. He allowed eight hits and eight earned runs, with three walks, five strikeouts and a wild pitch. The third inning was quiet for both sides: Joe Ryan retired Texas in order in the top half, and deGrom retired Minnesota in the bottom.

But the interruption did not become a reset. In the fourth, Kreidler’s one-out walk put another runner aboard, and Minnesota converted it into two more runs.

Texas did receive competent relief once the damage was done. Collyer worked a scoreless fifth and retired Kreidler to begin the sixth before Keaschall singled and Clemens homered. Trevor Williams then provided two scoreless innings, allowing one hit and striking out three.

Minnesota’s bullpen also finished without allowing a run: Kody Funderburk struck out two in the seventh, Tommy Nance handled the eighth after a leadoff walk by Wyatt Langford and induced a double play, and Taylor Rogers allowed a ninth-inning single before a reviewed double play supplied two outs. Danny Jansen then flew out to finish the game.

Ryan’s outing had a different shape from the scoreboard’s opening snapshot. Texas scored twice in the first after Brandon Nimmo doubled, Josh Jung was hit by a pitch and Corey Seager singled, with Wyatt Langford’s groundout adding the second run.

Ryan then kept Texas from building another scoring inning while allowing scattered traffic: Danny Jansen singled and Alejandro Osuna was hit by a pitch in the fifth; Ezequiel Duran singled and Jake Burger walked in the sixth. Ryan finished six innings with four hits allowed, two runs, eight strikeouts and one walk, plus three hit batters.

Texas collected six hits, but only Nimmo’s double went for extra bases. The Rangers stranded seven and never scored after the first. Clemens did not explain every part of a 10-2 loss, and Keaschall’s four-hit performance was the evening’s broader offensive story.

Still, Clemens kept extending Minnesota’s lead at the exact moments Texas needed the scoreboard to stop changing. By the sixth, the game had stopped asking whether the Rangers could recover and started waiting for the final out.

Sources

Official game data

Official game box score