Twins Walk Off Angels Behind Late Heroics from Caratini

There’s nothing quite like watching a baseball game slip through your fingers in the late innings, and that’s exactly what happened to the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday night at Target Field. The Twins punished them 5-3 in a game that was far closer than the final score suggests, but also never really belonged to anyone but Minnesota once the seventh inning rolled around.

Let’s be honest here: Mitch Farris got absolutely shelled. Two innings pitched, six hits, two earned runs, and absolutely no command to speak of. That’s not a recipe for winning baseball, no matter how good your offense is. The Angels came out swinging in the top of the third when Jorge Soler uncorked a two-run double that tied things up at 2-2, but that brief moment of hope was all they’d get.

The Twins struck first and struck hard. Royce Lewis absolutely demolished a hanging fastball in the second inning for a two-run homer that put Minnesota up 2-0 before the Angels could even blink. Lewis was the real deal on Saturday, finishing 2-for-4 with two RBIs. That’s the kind of performance that wins you ballgames, and it nearly did.

Things got interesting when Nolan Schanuel delivered a game-tying single in the seventh, making it 3-3 and giving the Angels just enough rope to hang themselves with. But then came the deciding blow: Victor Caratini, who apparently decided this game had gone on long enough, crushed a double down the line to put the Twins back on top. The go-ahead run scored, and just like that, the Angels were done.

Relief Pitching Tells the Story

Tommy Nance got the win despite pitching just one inning, which tells you everything you need to know about how this game unfolded. Yoendrys Gomez came in for the save and held firm, though not without controversy involving the ABS system. In 2026, we’re apparently challenging ball and strike calls now, and Gomez benefited from at least one overturned call on his way to closing things out. Whether you like it or not, that’s baseball in this era.

Angels Leave Opportunities on the Table

The Angels had their chances. Soler’s two-run double showed they could hit the Twins pitching, and Schanuel’s single proved they weren’t going down without a fight. But you simply cannot leave five runs on the board against a Twins team that’s playing decent baseball at home. The pitching collapse in the early innings by Farris basically handed this game away before the seventh inning dramatics even mattered.

This was a winnable game that the Angels let slip away through a combination of poor pitching and untimely execution. The Twins deserved to win because they made better pitching decisions down the stretch and got the timely hits when it mattered most. That’s not complicated baseball analysis; that’s just the way the game works. Los Angeles will need to regroup quickly because this is exactly the kind of loss that can derail a season if you let it.