Tampa Bay Rays vs Minnesota Twins Box Score on Aug 14, 2021

Kenta Maeda allowed just three singles while pitching six shutout innings and the Minnesota Twins smashed four home runs and had 16 hits while cruising to a 12-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday night in Minneapolis.

Brent Rooker homered and doubled and Luis Arraez, Max Kepler and Ryan Jeffers also homered for Minnesota, which jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first three innings. Arraez finished 2-for-4 with a walk and three RBIs and Rooker, Mitch Garver, Miguel Sano, Rob Refsnyder and Andrelton Simmons each had two hits for the Twins.

Maeda (6-4) didn't allow a runner to reach second base. He walked one and struck out four. Ralph Garza Jr., claimed off waivers from the Astros last week, followed Maeda with two hitless innings of relief and Danny Coulombe finished with a 1-2-3 ninth.

Tampa Bay had a franchise-record streak of seven consecutive games scoring eight or more runs snapped. The Rays came into the contest averaging 9.29 runs in their seven previous games on their nine-game road trip, which concludes Sunday afternoon.

Michael Wacha (2-4) suffered the loss, allowing seven runs on 11 hits over five innings.

Kepler hit Wacha's second pitch of the game 407 feet into the bleachers in right-center to start a four-run first inning for the Twins. Rooker followed with a line-drive double off the wall in center by the 411-foot sign and scored on a single by Arraez. Garver added an RBI double and Miguel Sano drove in another run with a groundout.

The Twins increased their lead to 7-0 with three more runs in the third. Josh Donaldson led off with a single and Arraez followed with his second homer of the season into the plaza behind the bleachers in right. Simmons added an RBI single to drive in Garver.

Rooker made it 9-0 with his sixth home run of the season in the sixth, a two-run drive down the left field line off reliever Louis Head. Jake Cave added a two-run single in the seventh off Ryan Sherriff to make it 11-0, and Jeffers finished the scoring with a solo homer off position-player Jordan Luplow, making his first major league pitching appearance, in the eighth.

--Field Level Media