Three Orioles Go Deep, Baltimore Pounds Minnesota 5-2
Baltimore hit three home runs — one each from Pete Alonso, Gunnar Henderson, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand — to dismantle Minnesota 5-2 on Tuesday night. The Orioles built a 4-0 lead before Minnesota even got on the board, and the story of the night was a Baltimore offense that simply would not stop hitting the ball out of the park.
The game turned decisively in the first plate appearance that mattered most. Alonso launched a 418-foot shot to left center, scoring Henderson, and just like that Minnesota's win probability dropped from 48% to 33% — a 15-point swing on a single swing of the bat. That's the kind of blow that reframes an entire evening, and Bailey Ober never recovered from it. The Twins' starter went six innings but surrendered 8 hits and 5 earned runs, a line that looks like a man who got beaten early and spent the rest of his outing trying to contain the bleeding.
Baltimore wasn't done. Henderson came back around in the second phase of scoring, going deep himself — 409 feet to right — with Yohel Pozo scoring ahead of him to push it to 4-0. Minnesota scratched one back when a Roden groundout plated Royce Lewis, but the Orioles answered immediately. Encarnacion-Strand put the exclamation point on the night with a 460-foot missile to center — the longest of the three Baltimore home runs — making it 5-1. Brooks Lee's RBI double in the same stretch of play gave the Twins their second run, but by then the math was already settled. Baltimore's three-homer barrage had done its work.
On the pitching side, Brandon Young gave Baltimore exactly what it needed: 6.0 innings, 1 earned run, and enough stability to let the offense do the heavy lifting. He wasn't dominant — 3 walks and 6 hits allowed suggest Minnesota made him work — but he limited the damage when it counted. Minnesota's bullpen, by contrast, was tidy but irrelevant; Tommy Nance and Taylor Rogers each threw a clean inning with two strikeouts apiece, but the deficit was already insurmountable by the time they arrived. Henderson finished 3-for-5 with a home run, 2 RBI, and 2 runs scored. Alonso went 3-for-4 with his homer and 2 RBI. Encarnacion-Strand added a 3-for-4 line of his own. Three different Orioles hitters, three different home runs, one very convincing final score.