Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Chris Colabello will not need to buy his mother a birthday gift. Or a Mother’s Day gift either after the evening he had tonight. On his mom’s birthday, Colabello delivered two crucial 2-run scoring plays that helped the Minnesota Twins top the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida tonight. Mike Pelfrey for the Twins and Jake Odorizzi for the Rays started the game, but neither had a decision in this 6-4 12-inning win for the Twins. The Twins’ bullpen came up big throwing 7 innings while giving up just 3 hits and striking out four.
After the Rays pushed across the first two runs of the game by playing small ball and capitalizing on miscues by the Twins, something cool happened in the 4th. While Marney Gellner from FSN is interviewing Chris Colabello’s parents as he bats, he proceeds to hit a game-tying 2 run home run to deep center field. His mom’s reaction is priceless and honest.
Here's the video of Chris Colabello hitting a two-run homer while his parents get interviewed on FSN: http://t.co/klPp4ghCl0 #MNTwins
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) April 24, 2014
See, she had perfect reason to be excited, even if it wasn’t because Bert Blyleven called her “Mommy.”
After the Twins pushed across two more runs in the 4th, the Rays worked their way back in the game after manufacturing a run in both the 5th and 6th innings. The score remained scoreless all the way until the 12th, even with both teams having several chances to push across the deciding run, including both teams stranding the go-ahead run on 3rd in their respective halves of the 9th.
The 12th inning proved to be the deciding inning for the Twins as the inning was led off by Mauer beating out an infield single. Plouffe then doubled down the left field line to have two people in scoring position for the AL RBI leader, Colabello. Of course, Colabello did not disappoint as he ripped a sharp single up the middle plating both to push the score to 6-4. Perkins came on in the bottom half of the 12th to secure his 4th save of the year while Casey Fien earned his 3rd win of this young season out of the bullpen.
Other notes from the game:
For a game which started at 6:10pm in the Midwest, it dragged on toward the 5 hour mark before the final out was recorded. Even after the first nine innings, the game had already lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes. Sam Fuld made his Twins’ debut sporting the #1 jersey most “notably” worn by Tsuyoshi Nishioka…(insert Bill Smith joke wherever you want). Fuld, who played three seasons for the Rays, was greeted with a standing ovation from the crowd at Tropicana Field (insert empty Tropicana Field stands joke here). Fuld, who will probably be described as the outfield version of Nick Punto numerous times before this season is over, ended the night 2 for 5 with 1 RBI in his debut game. Expect to see Fuld in the lineup more often if Aaron Hicks does not turn around his offensive production. Colabello, who had 4 RBI tonight, pushed his AL leading RBI total to 26 already, which is just one behind MLB leader, Giancarlo Stanton, who has 27. Tomorrow’s game will be a 12:10PM start as the Twins throw Ricky Nolasco (1-2) versus the Tampa Bay Rays, Erik Bedard (0-0).