Who were those guys?
The Twins showed up with murderous intentions at Yankee Stadium, showed up with chips on their shoulders, showed up with a cold-blooded edge and a swagger that has long been missing against their goliath tormentors.
All those years serving as the Washington Generals to the Yankees’ Harlem Globetrotters seemed like a distant memory when the Twins, 11-2 winners, laughed in the faces of Mystique and Aura and conducted batting practice against Jhony Brito and Colten Brewer in a nine-run first inning assault that left the Stadium shell-shocked.
Asked if he was aware of the Yankees’ dominance against the Twins, starting pitcher Joe Ryan told The Post: “Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t stop seeing that on the TV when I was getting ready today, they kept showing that, and some other stuff. … I think [Aaron] Judge’s on-base streak [which ended at 45] and all that, so I think that just gets me a little bit more fired-up sometimes, too. So I just want to go out and pitch well, and I think the team really picked me up and made that really easy to go do today.”
Back-to-back-to-back home runs by Michael A. Taylor, Edouard Julien (the first of his career following the first hit of his career) and Carlos Correa left Yankee fans erupting with a Bronx cheer when the 28-minute inning mercifully ended.
For the Yankees, it was The First Inning From Hell: nine runs, eight hits, no Minny Ha Ha this time. “That’s a first inning that I’ve never seen before,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said.
Baldelli was asked if this one was especially sweet given the drubbings the Twins had received from the Yankees.
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“You want me to be honest? No, it’s not,” Baldelli told The Post. “We come in with the mentality that we’re gonna win a ballgame every day. I don’t care who we’re playing. I don’t care about history. I really pay no mind to it whatsoever. And looking in the clubhouse right now, I don’t think there’s one guy that had any real feeling about the history between the Twins and the Yankees. Those guys are very competitive and very talented, and I think they enjoy the challenge of coming here and playing.”
A second Taylor home run in the third had the Runs Hits Errors line alongside the Twins blaring: 11 10 0.
On this night, the ones with Minnesota stitched on the front of their uniforms were the Bronx Bombers.
The Yankees didn’t expect these Twins to faint at the mere sight of the pinstripes, but all of a sudden the Stadium was turned into The House That Killebrew Built? The House That Hrbek Built? By a Ruthless and relentless bunch that sent a loud and clear message that kept anyone in The Bronx from even thinking about crowing:
Who’s your daddy?
The 2023 Twins bore absolutely no resemblance to the punching bags who had been 12-34 against the Yankees since 2015, and 38-98 since 2002 … and 2-16 in the postseason, with 13 consecutive losses.
The Yankees are not so haughty as to believe in the myth of invincibility, but they never could have imagined that their longtime punching bag could punch back like this. Remember Tyson-McNeeley? The Yanks were McNeeley.
Should the Yanks meet up again with the Astros in the playoffs, they can use this night as Exhibit A on how you overcome any psychological hurdle from previous injustices and ignominies.
It turns out that the 9-4 Twins didn’t need the services of a baseball exorcist to deal with their Yankee demons. All they needed was Brito looking nothing like the Dominican Dandy who had been making his pitch to be the fifth starter in the injury-plagued rotation. Isiah Kiner-Falefa was much sharper working the ninth. You read that right.
Ryan (10 Ks across seven three-hit innings) all but resembled Twins HOFer Bert Blyleven aside from Anthony Rizzo’s home run in the fourth, the first of his two. “He showed us the book on how you go out there and pitch with a lead,” Baldelli said of Ryan.
You could hear applause through the visiting clubhouse door before it opened to the media. “Every time we win a ballgame, the players go in there and they do a Player of the Game, a Pitcher of the Game, and they have a lot of fun with it,” Baldelli said. “We do that every day, and then I get to go in there and give away first hits and first homers and things like that. So we’ve actually had a few nice moments recently, but it’s nothing more than that, I promise you that.”
The Twins have won two World Series championships. Since the Twins’ last one in 1991, the Yankees have won Nos. 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27, back in 2009. But there will always nights when the past means nothing. And this was one of them.