Triston Casas hits 3 homers, carries Red Sox past Twins 8-1 in doubleheader opener

BOSTON (AP) Boston’s Triston Casas homered in his first three at-bats and drove in seven runs on Sunday in the opener of a split doubleheader, carrying the Red Sox to an 8-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

Winning for just the eighth time in their last 22 games, the Red Sox are only 23-36 since the All-Star break.

With a chance at tying history and the crowd cheering, the 24-year-old Casas grounded out in his fourth at-bat. He never got up again.

“I felt the most locked in I have all season,” Casas said. “I wasn't going in with the intention to beat the ball to a spot. I was reacting to where it was, and keeping my posture and letting the bat go over the right part of the plate.”

Trying to earn one of the AL’s wild-card spots, the Twins have lost 12 of their last 18 games and are just 11-21 since Aug. 17 when they were 17 games over .500.

The record for homers in a game is four, and it’s been done 18 times in MLB history.

The last to hit four in a game was J.D. Martinez, on Sept. 4, 2017, when he was playing for Arizona against the Los Angeles Dodgers. No AL player has done it since Josh Hamilton, playing for Texas, did it against the Baltimore Orioles May 8, 2012.

Casas’ first came with two runners on off a first-pitch fastball from Pablo López (15-9) in the opening inning and sailed an estimated 400 feet, landing in the seats behind Boston’s bullpen.

His second - also off López - was an opposite field drive into the Green Monster seats in the third, also with two runners on that made it 6-0. It marked the second two-homer game of his career, the other came July 22nd of last season.

Casas’ third was on the first pitch from reliever Brent Headrick leading off the fifth inning that gave the Red Sox an 8-1 lead.

Nick Pivetta (6-11) gave up an unearned run in five innings.

López was tagged for seven runs and nine hits in four innings. He had allowed two or fewer runs in 10 of his last 12 starts.

“There’s no sugar-coating it. Not the performance I was looking for, especially with what this game means,” he said. “Didn’t provide the length, didn’t provide the quality.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora was ejected in the first inning. He became irate after the umpiring crew came together and decided to allow Byron Buxton to advance to third on an interference call at second on a pickoff attempt and was tossed by crew chief Alan Porter.

“He blocked the bag, he did,” Cora said. “But the whole mechanism, I didn't like. It took them to argue and then Alan called time to get together. They got the call right, but you're right there - just call it.”

The scheduled start time was pushed up an hour earlier to 12:35 p.m., with the makeup from Saturday’s rainout slated to start at 5:35 p.m.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Red Sox: OF Tyler O’Neill didn’t play because he’s been dealing with back tightness.

UP NEXT

Twins RHP Zebby Matthews (1-3, 6.30 ERA) is scheduled to start the nightcap against Red Sox RHP Kutter Crawford (8-15, 4.19).

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