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Major League Baseball
Tampa Bay 11, Minnesota 4
When: 4:05 PM ET, Saturday, September 4, 2021
Where: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Temperature: Indoors
Umpires: Home - Mike Muchlinski, 1B - Jim Wolf, 2B - Junior Valentine, 3B - Sam Holbrook
Attendance: 13861

Rookie Randy Arozarena went 3-for-4 and hit one of Tampa Bay's season-high six home runs Saturday in the Rays' 11-4 throttling of the Minnesota Twins in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Yandy Diaz (2-for-4, four RBIs), Jordan Luplow, Manuel Margot, Nelson Cruz and Brandon Lowe went deep for Tampa Bay (86-50), which leads the second-place New York Yankees by 7 1/2 games in the American League East.

Arozarena tripled, scored three times and was hit by a pitch but struck out in the seventh, a double short of a cycle.

Tampa Bay's Wander Franco returned after a one-game absence and was 2-for-5 with a double, two runs and an RBI.

With his first-inning RBI single, the rookie shortstop extended his on-base streak to 34 games -- the third-longest in history by a player under age 21.

Though he allowed four runs and four hits in five innings, including two homers, starter Chris Archer (1-1) notched his first Rays' win since May 17, 2018.

Dietrich Enns' three scoreless innings resulted in his first career save.

With the power-fueled victory, the Rays claimed the series and exacted revenge on Minnesota (58-77), which won two of three from the American League East leaders last month in Minneapolis.

Jorge Polanco paced Minnesota by going 3-for-4 with a homer, double, two runs and two RBIs.

Miguel Sano homered and Rob Refsnyder was for 2-for-2 with two walks, but the Twins lost their fourth straight game.

Starter Andrew Albers (1-1) was pounded for nine runs and 10 hits -- four homers -- over three innings.

After Arozarena's leadoff triple in the first inning, Franco scored him with a single up the middle. The rookie then tagged up and advanced to second on a foul fly to right before scoring on Diaz's single.

Arozarena and Franco produced two-out hits in the second, with the Rays going up 3-0 on Albers' balk.

Diaz then slammed Albers' 1-0 slider to center -- his 10th homer -- for a three-run shot. Luplow followed by going back-to-back for his ninth homer and a 7-0 advantage.

Leading off the third, Margot hit his 10th homer to left-center field and Arozarena added his 19th for a 9-0 lead.

In the fourth, Max Kepler's RBI groundout and Sano's 24th long ball pulled the Twins to 9-2, but solo homers by Cruz (27th) and Lowe (32nd) matched it in the bottom half.

The game's final runs came on Polanco's 26th homer -- a two-run blast -- in the fifth.

--Field Level Media

Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Minnesota   Tampa Bay
Andrew Albers Player Chris Archer
Loss W/L Win
3.0 IP 5.0
2 Strikeouts 3
10 Hits 4
27.00 ERA 7.20
Hitting
Minnesota   Tampa Bay
Jorge Polanco Player Randy Arozarena
3 Hits 3
2 RBI 1
1 HR 1
7 TB 8
.750 Avg .750
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Minnesota 9 2 17 .265 13 8 4 4 0 0
Tampa Bay 13 6 34 .351 14 7 10 5 0 0