Ozzie Albies went 4-for-5 with two home runs as the Atlanta Braves, despite hitting into a triple play, cruised to an 11-7 victory over the Minnesota Twins in the rubber game of their three-game series on Wednesday afternoon in Minneapolis.
It was Albies' second consecutive four-hit game and the third of his career.
Freddie Freeman, who homered for the third consecutive game, went 3-for-5 with an RBI and scored twice. Ronald Acuna Jr. also homered for Atlanta.
Charlie Culberson also had four hits and two RBIs and Johan Camargo had three RBIs for Atlanta, which finished with 16 hits for the second straight game.
Max Fried (13-4) improved to 8-1 in 14 road games this season with his sixth win in his past eight starts. Fried, who struck out seven of the first nine batters he faced, gave up three runs on six hits over 5 1/3 innings while striking out a season-high 10.
Minnesota lost despite turning its second 5-4-3 around-the-horn triple play in the span of 16 days in the third inning.
Tyler Flowers hit a hard grounder to Miguel Sano, who tagged third and then rifled a throw to second baseman Jonathan Schoop, who threw to first baseman C.J. Cron for the 14th triple play in team history. The Twins also turned a 5-4-3 triple play in the first inning on July 22 against Edwin Encarnacion of the New York Yankees, with Martin Perez also on the mound.
Sano went 2-for-5 with a three-run home run and four RBIs, Jake Cave had two doubles and an RBI and Cron and Eddie Rosario also had two hits and an RBI for Minnesota. Perez (8-5) suffered the loss, allowing seven runs (six earned) on 11 hits over six innings.
Albies and Freeman hit back-to-back home runs, and Culberson added an RBI double, to give Atlanta a 3-0 lead in the first inning. It was the 12th time this season the Braves had back-to-back homers, a franchise record.
The Braves extended the lead to 6-0 in the third inning by parlaying three singles, two walks and an error into three runs before Flowers' triple-play ground out.
Albies made it 7-0 in the sixth with his 17th of the season. The Twins cut it to 7-3 in the bottom half of the frame on RBI singles by Sano and Cron and an RBI double by Cave.
Acuna hit his 29th home run of the season and fourth in six games in the eighth, a two-run drive to right-center, to increase Atlanta's lead to 9-3. Camargo added a two-run single in the ninth to make it 11-3.
Rosario had a two-out RBI single and Sano followed with his 20th homer of the season, a 411-foot three-run shot off reliever Josh Tomlin, to end the scoring.
--Field Level Media
Atlanta | Minnesota | |
Max Fried | Player | Martin Perez |
Win | W/L | Loss |
5.1 | IP | 6.0 |
10 | Strikeouts | 6 |
5 | Hits | 12 |
0.00 | ERA | 10.50 |
Atlanta | Minnesota | |
Ozzie Albies | Player | Jake Cave |
4 | Hits | 2 |
2 | RBI | 1 |
2 | HR | 0 |
10 | TB | 4 |
.800 | Avg | .500 |