Blue Jays 5 - 6 Twins
Final
  for this game

Twins aim to cap excellent month with win over Blue Jays

May 31, 2015 - 1:17 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - The Minnesota Twins will try to pick up their 20th win of the month as they conclude a three-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays at Target Field on Sunday.

Minnesota improved to 19-7 this month on Saturday with a narrow 3-2 win over Toronto that evened the series. Trevor Plouffe went 2-for-4 and drove in a run, Chris Herrmann added a solo home and Brian Dozier delivered an RBI triple for the Twins, who have won six of their last seven games to pull within a half-game of the AL Central-leading Royals.

Ryan Pressly earned the win in relief of Kyle Gibson, who limited Toronto to two runs -- one earned -- on eight hits over 5 2/3 innings. Blaine Boyer picked up his first save of the season with Glen Perkins unavailable.

"Glen was [just having] a day where he needed a break," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "We knew coming in we needed to get some outs late without his left-handed arm. Casey (Fien) had a big inning for us, (Brian) Duensing got a big out, and the other guys did a nice job. Boyer faced a tough part of their lineup and got the save, so it was a nice bounce-back win for us."

Perkins has notched a save against every American League team except for Toronto.

The Twins were without right fielder Torii Hunter and catcher Kurt Suzuki on Saturday as they both had a rest day, but they are expected back for the rubber match. Hunter is hitting .337 with six home runs and 23 RBI this month.

Molitor will send the red hot Ricky Nolasco to the mound to close out the series. Nolasco has gone 5-0 with a 3.77 ERA in five starts since returning from the 15-day disabled list. He picked up the 100th win of his career on Monday when he limited Boston to two runs over a season-high 7 2/3 innings.

Nolasco would be leading the majors in run support average if he had pitched enough innings to qualify. He will be facing the official MLB leader in run support, Drew Hutchison, who has been backed up by an average of 6.8 runs per game by Toronto.

Hutchison didn't need much support in his last outing, as he registered his second career shutout in a 6-0 win over the White Sox on Monday.

"I did a good job of getting ahead, and I had a really good sinker tonight," Hutchison said after blanking Chicago. "I got a lot of early-swing ground balls, got double plays. That was the key to getting deep in the game and keeping the pitch count down."

Josh Donaldson is riding a 19-game hitting streak against the Twins going into the series finale. The star third baseman hit a home run in four consecutive games before going 1-for-5 in Saturday's setback. Kevin Pillar went deep for the second time this season in the loss.






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