Keibert Ruiz had a home run and two doubles, drove in four runs and scored three times to lead the Washington Nationals to a 7-5 win against the visiting Minnesota Twins in the rubber game of their three-game series on Thursday afternoon.
Curtis Mead had two RBIs and Jacob Young scored twice for the Nationals, who split their six-game homestand.
Nationals starter Jake Irvin allowed four runs and eight hits over five-plus innings. The right-hander struck out two and walked one.
Left-hander PJ Poulin (3-0) blew a save by allowing an inherited runner but recovered to get three outs, and Gus Varland got the final four outs for his fourth save.
Ryan Jeffers had a home run, two doubles and three runs for the Twins. Brooks Lee had two hits and two RBIs for Minnesota, which opens a three-game series at the Cleveland Guardians on Friday.
Twins starter Simeon Woods Richardson allowed five runs and four hits in 4 1/3 innings. The right-hander struck out two and walked two.
Ruiz lined a home run down the right field line off John Klein (0-1) to start the seventh and move Washington back in front 6-5. Mead delivered an RBI single into right field later in the inning to stretch the lead to 7-5.
Lee grounded an opposite-field single through the open left side of the infield with the bases loaded in the second to score two runners for a 2-0 Twins lead.
Woods Richardson induced double plays to end the first two innings. But the Nationals didn’t let him off the hook in the third after Young led off with a single to center and scored on a double to right by Ruiz, who took third on the throw home. Ruiz then scored on a sacrifice fly to tie it 2-2.
After Lee doubled to right to lead off the fifth, Tristan Gray followed with a hard grounder up the middle that went off the glove of second baseman Nasim Nunez and trickled into shallow center for a single, scoring Lee for a 3-2 lead.
The Nationals started the fifth with a walk and a hit by pitch before Ruiz lined a double into the right-center-field gap to score both runners for a 4-3 lead.
With the bases loaded and one out in the inning, Mead hit a high fly to shallow center that fell in between three defenders. They managed to get a forceout at second, but another run scored to make it 5-3.
Irvin came back out for the sixth and Jeffers hit his second pitch over the fence in left to cut it to 5-4, ending his day.
Jeffers hit an opposite-field double off the end of his bat with two outs in the seventh and Josh Bell then lined a pinch-hit double into the left field corner to tie it 5-5.
–Field Level Media
