Jose Miranda played behind Kenta Maeda several times, and Ryan Jeffers caught him in 19 starts. But whew, did Maeda's former Twins teammates show him no mercy Thursday.
Miranda went 5-for-5 in only seven innings, including a pair of doubles and a single against Maeda, and Jeffers doubled home a run before ending Maeda's day with a two-run homer into the left-field seats.
In all, Maeda was hammered for nine runs, the second-most of his career, in 3⅔ innings in his first game back at Target Field, and the Twins roared to a 12-3 victory over the Tigers in a game that was halted early by rain in the seventh inning. The Twins took two of the three games from Detroit and have won six of their seven series since June 10.
"It feels awesome. It feels great. One of my best days so far," Miranda said after driving in three runs. "After I got the fourth one, I kind of thought about [getting] the fifth one, I'm not going to lie on that one."
It was Maeda's first game in the Twin Cities since signing a two-year, $24 million contract with the Tigers last winter, and it highlighted his difficulty this season in snuffing rallies. Opponents are batting .372 against him with runners in scoring position, and slugging a whopping .861, and Thursday the Twins were 5-for-10 in those situations, with eight runs off him scoring with two outs.
"It's difference-making. It's the difference between having to battle through a game for nine innings, or separating," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "You don't know when those two-out hits are coming. Our guys found a way to put the ball in play; when guys are in scoring position, that's a big part of the answer."
The Twins gave Bailey Ober a cushion that came in handy after the Tigers scored three runs in the first two innings. Ober gave up a home run to Colt Keith on an 0-2 slider in the first inning — the Twins' 17 first-inning homers allowed this season are the most in the American League — and he gave up two unearned runs in the second.
"It was maybe my one big miss of the game, an 0-2 breaking ball [left] up," said Ober, who has given up five earned runs in his last four starts, a 1.65 ERA.
Miranda and Jeffers' back-to-back doubles and Brooks Lee's sacrifice fly closed the gap to one run in the bottom of the inning, and the Twins took the lead an inning later after two infield hits and a walk loaded the bases. With two outs, Max Kepler grounded a single into left field, scoring two runs, and Manuel Margot hit a slow roller just out of Maeda's reach, bringing in another.
BOXSCORE: Twins 12, Detroit 3 (7 inn.)
Maeda seemed to recover with two quick outs in the fourth inning but then walked Carlos Correa and Trevor Larnach. Miranda followed with a double in front of the bullpens, nearly identical to his second-inning shot, to pad the lead with two more. Then Jeffers golfed a low 0-2 splitter just inside the left-field foul pole, extending the Twins' team-record streak to 22 consecutive games with a home run, tying Baltimore for the longest such streak this season.
Ober said he felt bad for his former teammate. "I want success for Kenta. We love him here, but when we're playing against him, obviously we want to win," Ober said. "I hope he shoves against every single other team besides us."
