SAN DIEGO — It took the Twins a few innings to break through against Padres starter Matt Waldron. But once they did, it seemed like they didn’t want to wait any longer.
The Twins ambushed Waldron in the fourth inning, collecting seven straight hits that produced just as many runs in their 11-4 win over the San Diego Padres on Wednesday evening at Petco Park.
Four of those seven hits came on the first pitch of an at-bat. Another two hits came on the second pitch. Only Matt Wallner’s at-bat — which produced the three-run home run that provided the dagger for the Twins (71-56) — lasted more than two pitches. It lasted four.
“We were probably a little bit too patient the first time through and tried, maybe, to see (Waldron’s knuckleball),” Wallner said. “It’s just a different pitch that you don’t see every day. I think after that, we got way more aggressive and started battling in those counts and winning.”
The seven-run inning started with an Edouard Julien hit, one of four hits for him on a day where he was playing in front of his parents who flew in from Québec City.
Julien’s sophomore campaign has featured ups and downs — and he’s spent much of it at Triple-A — but Wednesday’s performance was a positive for the second baseman.
“My goal is always to get on base and just help the team, but it felt good,” Julien said. “It’s the stretch where I’ve been feeling the best this year.”
The inning also featured hits from Christian Vázquez, Austin Martin (double), Willi Castro (double), Trevor Larnach and Royce Lewis before Wallner cleared the bases by hitting a ball 410 feet out to right field.
It was an encouraging response from the Twins, who suffered a crushing defeat the night before and were on a three-game losing streak.
“When you get (Julien) going like that, when you get Austin Martin going, when you look up and down different spots in the lineup and these guys are whacking balls and producing and driving people in and getting on base, everything else gets compounded and there’s so many more ways to score runs and we become more dynamic as a team when those guys are doing that,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.
While the offense hammered out 18 hits, including a career-high four from Larnach, starting pitcher Simeon Woods Richardson did his part, too.
Woods Richardson slogged through a 29-pitch first inning, allowing a single and a pair of walks to load the bases, but he worked his way out of the jam by getting National League Rookie of the Year candidate Jackson Merrill to fly out and then settled in nicely.
Baldelli called Woods Richardson’s escape act “the biggest point in the entire game,” and said he thought it catapulted the team.
Woods Richardson ended up making it through five innings, throwing a career-high 101 pitches. He gave up just three hits, including a home run to Donovan Solano in his final inning of work, and struck out seven Padres (72-56) hitters.
The victory capped a winning road trip for the Twins, who won four out of the seven games despite missing stars Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa.
“It was an important road trip for us,” Baldelli said. “We were going into this road trip with some guys who were not going to be available to us, and it kind of stamps and further emphasizes the fact that we want our players back and healthy but whoever we have, we don’t care who we’re facing, we can go out and win games.”
