Buxton, Bader homer as Twins beat Orioles again, win fourth straight

Byron Buxton continues to absolutely rake for the Minnesota Twins, who have gotten healthier and are inching back towards the .500 mark after a rough start. Buxton hit a three-run home run on Wednesday night — his third consecutive game with a bomb — to help propel the Twins to a 5-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles at Target Field.

The Orioles (13-22) were up 1-0 in the bottom of the third when Buxton, with two runners on, got a hanging curveball from Charlie Morton and launched it into the second deck. It's the ninth homer of the year for a guy who has been one of the hottest players in Major League Baseball lately.

We love watching Byron Buxton play baseball. pic.twitter.com/jocQLsI83A
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) May 8, 2025

Buxton later added a 106 mile-per-hour single for his 12th multi-hit game since April 13, which is tied for the most in baseball. He's hitting over .315 and slugging over .650 in his last 23 games, and he has eight home runs, five steals, 20 runs scored, and 21 RBI during that span. After a slow start, his OPS on the season is up to .847.

The Orioles cut their deficit in half with a run in the fifth inning to chase Twins starter Simeon Woods Richardson from the game, but Harrison Bader added some insurance with a pinch-hit two-run homer in the seventh. It was Bader's fourth of the year, his first since April 2, and the first pinch-hit homer of his career. He was scratched from Tuesday's lineup due to illness and didn't start on Wednesday, but is feeling better and provided a big swing off the bench.

Life is Bader when Harrison hits home runs 🚀 pic.twitter.com/SCAECR2kXI
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) May 8, 2025

The Twins (17-20) have won the first two games of this series against Baltimore by a combined score of 14-3. They've now sandwiched a pair of four-game winning streaks around a tough four-game losing streak. Since starting 7-15, they've won ten of their last 15 games.

Woods Richardson was pulled with two outs in the fifth inning, having allowed two runs. Danny Coulombe entered the game and escaped trouble for the Twins, who got a strong night from five different relievers. Louis Varland, making his 20th appearance in 37 games, finished off the sixth inning with an incredible fielding play.

Dive, shovel, OUT!

What a play by Louis Varland 😮 pic.twitter.com/XAWI1YGI2f
— MLB (@MLB) May 8, 2025

Brock Stewart pitched the seventh, Griffin Jax worked around a couple hits in the eighth, and Jhoan Duran locked down his fifth save of the year for Minnesota in the ninth.

Royce Lewis, who returned from his hamstring injury to make his season debut on Tuesday, started at designated hitter again and was 0 for 2 with a couple hard groundouts and a walk. Brooks Lee and Ty France joined Buxton in having two-hit games for Minnesota, and Willi Castro had a hit in his second consecutive game since coming back from an oblique injury.

The Twins will look to complete the sweep and set a new season high with five straight wins in Thursday afternoon's series finale. Joe Ryan (2.93 ERA) takes the bump for Minnesota against Baltimore's Dean Kremer (5.73) at 12:10 p.m. CT.

Update: Ryan has been scratched with "flu-like symptoms," so it'll be Bailey Ober starting for the Twins instead.