Brewers sweep Twins as bullpen falters, offense can't catch up

MINNEAPOLIS — The Milwaukee Brewers did something that no team has been able to do to the Minnesota Twins all season.

The Twins' stingy bullpen, which entered the day having allowed the second-fewest home runs in the American League, was victimized in each of the final three innings Sunday, the first time this year that the 'pen has given up a trio of homers. The Twins hit three homers of their own, but Milwaukee rode its power to an 8-7 victory at Target Field and a sweep of the two-game series.

Byron Buxton homered twice and Trevor Larnach once, and Max Kepler and Carlos Santana each came close to matching them against former Twin Trevor Megill in the ninth inning, keeping tension high among a huge and noisy crowd of 36,327. But Megill struck out Matt Wallner to preserve Milwaukee's third win in four meetings with the Twins this year.

Minnesota owned a 5-4 lead heading into the seventh inning, but Jorge Alcalá surrendered a 411-foot upper-deck blast to Jackson Chourio to tie the score. An inning later, Griffin Jax watched Rhys Hoskins hit a ball that appeared headed for the flower gardens atop the left-field wall, though a fan in the first row caught it before it landed — or before, the Twins maintained, Austin Martin could make an amazing catch.

And Eric Haase connected in the ninth inning against Caleb Thielbar, his second home run of the game.

It was a frustrating outcome for Joe Ryan, who appeared dominant for the first four innings. The only hit he allowed in that stretch, however, landed four rows up in the left-field bleachers, courtesy of Haase and a middle-of-the-plate sweeper.

But Ryan faced a dozen more batters in the fifth and sixth, and half of them recorded hits. Four singles and a double brought three Milwaukee runs home and gave the Brewers their first lead. Ryan managed to strand Willy Adames after a leadoff double in the sixth, but he failed for a fifth consecutive outing to provide a quality start.

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