Matthews Dominates, Twins Survive Smith's Two-Homer Ninth-Inning Scare

Minnesota built a four-run lead and then watched Houston's Cam Smith nearly erase it single-handedly, but the Twins held on 5-4. Smith went 2-for-4 with two home runs and two RBI — both shots coming in separate innings — and it still wasn't enough.

The Twins wasted no time against Peter Lambert. Royce Lewis opened the scoring in the fourth with a 375-foot shot to left, and Victor Caratini followed two batters later with a 426-foot blast to center — back-to-back home runs that put Minnesota up 2-0 before Houston could blink. Lambert never fully recovered, finishing with 4 earned runs allowed over 5.2 innings. Smith cut it to 2-1 with a 408-foot homer to left in the fifth, but that was the only damage Houston could manage against Zebby Matthews, who was quietly putting together one of the better pitching lines of the night: 7.0 innings, 4 hits, 1 earned run, 1 walk, and 7 strikeouts. The story of the game, through seven innings, was Matthews keeping Houston's lineup in a box.

Minnesota broke it open in the sixth when Josh Bell's 413-foot shot to right center scored Brooks Lee and pushed the lead to 4-1 — the single biggest momentum shift of the game. Houston's win probability dropped from 36% to 17% on that swing. A seventh-inning run off a Clemens groundout, which scored Keaschall and moved Lee to second, made it 5-1, and at that point it looked like a comfortable road win for the Twins.

Then the ninth happened. With Miguel Ulloa having bridged the gap with 2.0 scoreless innings and 4 strikeouts, Nate Pearson came on to close it out — and the wheels came off. Taylor Trammell launched a 412-foot two-run shot to right, scoring Paredes and suddenly making it 5-3. Two batters later, Smith went deep again — 429 feet to left center — and just like that it was a one-run game. Pearson finished with 1 earned run allowed in 1.1 innings, but the damage was done. Houston couldn't push across the tying run, and Minnesota escaped with a 5-4 win. Smith's two-homer night looks like the kind of performance that will sting Houston fans for days — not because it wasn't enough to win, but because it almost was.