May 29, 2017: Astros erupt with 11-run eighth inning to rout Twins, give Jankowski only big-league win

Already pacing the American League West less than two months into the 2017 season, the Houston Astros broke even further from the pack with 11 wins in a row. The streak’s most improbable chapter was on Memorial Day, May 29—at first a pitchers’ duel, then a rout in favor of the host Minnesota Twins and, ultimately, after an 11-run eighth inning, a 16-8 blowout for the Astros at Target Field, extending Houston’s winning streak to five.

The Astros arrived in Minneapolis with a controversial rebuild finally blossoming. In 2011 Houston had begun trading off veterans, applying analytic evaluation methods, and stockpiling prospects and high draft picks.1 Sacrificing on-field results for a brighter future, the Astros lost at least 106 games each season from 2011 through 2013.

Through 2016, all Houston had for its churn was two modest winning seasons, one postseason appearance, and a 2014 Sports Illustrated cover proclaiming them “Your 2017 World Series Champs.”2 But young talent like 2012 first-overall draft pick Carlos Correa and 2015 second-overall pick Alex Bregman joined perennial All-Star Jose Altuve in the Astros’ lineup, which was fortified with veterans Carlos Beltrán and Brian McCann during the 2016-17 offseason, and the concept was fully operational in 2017.3 After completing a three-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles on May 28, the Astros were 19 games over .500 and 10 games ahead in the division.4

“Make it through the first and second innings scoreless, and they’ll figure you out in the third, hammering and hammering until the bullpen door breaks open,” Brian T. Smith wrote in the Houston Chronicle.5

Minnesota had also risen from the cellar, if with less hullaballoo than Houston. Worst in the majors at 59-103 in 2016, the Twins were resurgent in 2017. They entered May 29 first in the AL Central Division, two games up on the second-place Cleveland Indians.

A key to Minnesota’s success was veteran right-hander Ervin Santana, enjoying one of the best seasons of his 16-year career. The 34-year-old Dominican had a 7-2 record and a 1.80 ERA; in his previous start, he had blanked the Orioles on two hits.6

Facing the Astros a day after nine Twins pitchers saw action in a 15-inning loss to the Tampa Bay Rays,7 Santana seemed intent on giving the bullpen a breather. Through three innings, he limited Houston to one hit, striking out five.

Astros righty Brad Peacock was even more effective at the outset, using a fastball and sweeping slider to set down all nine Twins the first time through the order. He matched Santana with five strikeouts.

The pitching duel was intact as Santana retired the first two Astros in the fourth. But Houston’s explosive offense stirred. Correa crushed a home run off the batter’s eye in center. Beltrán followed with a popup that dropped into short left field. He took a wide turn around first; Eddie Rosario attempted to catch him off the bag but threw wildly out of play, and Beltrán took third. When Santana’s slider to McCann bounced in the dirt and evaded Chris Gimenez’s grasp, Beltrán scored for a 2-0 Houston lead.

Peacock extended his perfect string to 11 before Joe Mauer slapped a two-strike single with two outs in the fourth. Setting down Miguel Sano for the final out of the inning, Peacock carried his shutout into the fifth.

At that point, the Twins found their groove. Max Kepler lined a leadoff double to right. Jorge Polanco fouled off five pitches, then crushed a breaking ball off the scoreboard in right-center for a triple, scoring Kepler with Minnesota’s first run.

Peacock appeared to regain control when Polanco held at third on Rosario’s groundout, and Byron Buxton fanned after Gimenez’s four-pitch walk.

Instead, the Astros unraveled. Peacock’s first pitch to Brian Dozier thudded off McCann’s glove for a passed ball; Polanco scored the tying run, and Gimenez took second. Dozier dropped a hanging breaking ball into center for a single, driving home Gimenez for a 3-2 lead.

Houston manager A.J. Hinch summoned right-hander Jordan Jankowski to replace Peacock. The 28-year-old Jankowski had reached the majors days earlier, in his sixth season in the Astros’ organization; this was his second big-league appearance.8

Due up was Robbie Grossman, a former Astro and Jankowski’s Triple-A teammate in 2015. Grossman worked the count full, then lined a double into the gap in right-center. Dozier scored for a two-run Twins lead.

Soon it was a five-run game, as Mauer singled home Grossman, and Sano battered a hanging breaking ball over the fence in center for his 12th homer of the season. Minnesota had erupted for a seven-run inning, good for a 7-2 lead.

The Astros tried to strike back in their next at-bat in the sixth. Correa doubled with two outs. After the action paused for a league-wide Memorial Day moment of silence, Santana walked Beltrán and McCann, and ran the count full on Marwin Gonzalez; a rain shower passed through Target Field, then turned to sunshine. But Gonzalez grounded out, and Houston went scoreless.

Minnesota tightened its stranglehold once the Astros’ rally stalled out. Santana followed his rocky sixth inning with a clean seventh. Jankowski had pitched a scoreless sixth, but Grossman’s homer in the seventh tacked on another run, boosting the lead to 8-2.

Six outs from victory, Twins manager Paul Molitor removed Santana after 114 pitches—more than in any of his previous 2017 starts—and summoned reliever Ryan Pressly, who had pitched 1⅓ innings a day earlier. Pressly had control problems right away, walking Josh Reddick and hitting Altuve on the hand.

Correa followed with a sharp groundball inside first and down the line. Kepler held Correa to a single by playing the carom off the railing, as Reddick scored, and Altuve took third.

Beltrán’s tapped a grounder that died between the pitcher’s mound and third; the infield single loaded the bases.

Pressly retired McCann on a popup, but Gonzalez connected on an opposite-field drive to deep left. Rosario had started there but moved to center in the seventh, after Buxton injured his left little finger while diving for a ball. Ehire Adrianza was now in left.

Adrianza went to the warning track and leaped, but the ball cleared his glove and hit off the wall. Altuve and Correa scored, cutting the deficit to 8-5, and Gonzalez had a long single.

Pressly was out after six batters;9 Molitor called on lefty Craig Breslow, like Pressly pitching for the second day in a row. Bregman smashed Breslow’s first pitch to right for a single, again loading the bases.

Polanco turned a diving stop of pinch-hitter Evan Gattis’s grounder into a force at second; the Twins picked up the second out as Beltrán crossed home to make it 8-6.

George Springer was Houston’s third straight righty against Breslow. He took two balls as the rain returned. Play was halted and the tarp came out; Hinch debated with the umpires while Springer fumed in the dugout, Houston’s momentum seemingly interrupted by the delay.

The action resumed 10 minutes later. Springer ripped a single to left. Bregman scored, and it was a one-run game.

Breslow finally faced a left-hander in Reddick, who hit a looper to short right-center. Rosario—with Buxton’s superior defense sidelined10—slid on his knees, but the ball hit off his glove. Pinch-runner Jake Marisnick and Springer came home, Reddick took second, and the Astros had a seven-run inning of their own and a 9-8 lead.

Veteran Matt Belisle became the third Twins pitcher of the inning. He balked Reddick to second. Altuve lined a single off Mauer’s glove at first, scoring Reddick. After Correa walked, Beltrán punctuated the inning by lining his 427th career homer inside the right-field foul pole for a 13-8 advantage.

“It’s not a crooked number, but two straight ones,” Twins broadcaster Dick Bremer lamented, as the camera panned on the Astros’ “11” on the scoreboard.

Houston poured on three more ninth-inning runs, highlighted by Bregman’s two-run home run, to make the final 16-8. The Astros had a five-game winning streak.

“We trust in each other, we have the confidence in each other to be able to bounce back, never give up, and to come through with a big win,” Correa said afterward.11

“This lineup is something special,” Reddick added.12

“In sports there are bad losses and there are really bad losses,” Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Chip Scoggins concluded.13 “This one deserves a category of its own.”14

“It was a good game for seven innings,” Molitor noted.15

In the sweep of the Astros’ 2017 season, their May 29 win stood out only for its unusually exaggerated back-and-forth, as Houston’s high-octane offense blazed through October, easily leading the majors in runs scored with 896. A 17-6 win over Minnesota came two days later. The Astros scored 16 runs twice more that season and 19 against the Toronto Blue Jays on July 9. They slugged their way to the first World Series title in franchise history.16

But Houston’s madcap Memorial Day may have mattered most for an Astro who did not swing a bat or take a pitch. The 11-run eighth made Jankowski, who threw 46 pitches, faced 13 batters, and allowed four runs, the pitcher of record.

It went into the record books as the only win of his three-appearance big-league career.17

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes below, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. He also reviewed a YouTube recording of the game’s television broadcast on FOX Sports North.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN201705290.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2017/B05290MIN2017.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg3RQ8O5T60

Notes

1 Andy Martino, Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing (New York: Doubleday, 2021), 80-88.

2 Ben Reiter, “Houston’s Grand Experiment,” Sports Illustrated, June 30, 2014: 30.

3 Martino, 129-132.

4 “This is just a good baseball team 51 contests into a 162-game campaign,” columnist Brian T. Smith wrote in the Houston Chronicle. “The best in the sport, if you want to stick to facts. The best in franchise history at this point in a six-month season, if you want to begin dreaming of October and where this could line up.” Brian T. Smith, “Calendar Says May, but It’s Getting Easy to Think of October,” Houston Chronicle, May 29, 2017: C1.

5 Smith, “Calendar Says May, but It’s Getting Easy to Think of October.”

6 Phil Miller, “Santana Silences Orioles: One Baltimore Runner Reached Third Base in His Two-Hit Shutout,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 24, 2017: C1.

7 Phil Miller, “Out of Chances, Out of Steam: Long Bell Toils for Twins After Nearly 6½ Hours Over 15 Innings,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 29, 2017: C1.

8 Needing a bullpen arm because Dallas Keuchel’s neck injury led to Peacock’s promotion to the rotation and Ashur Tolliver had gone four innings in relief on May 21, the Astros called up Jankowski from Triple-A Fresno on May 22. He made his major-league debut with an inning against the Detroit Tigers on May 24. Houston optioned Jankowski to Triple A on May 27 but recalled him a day later when Charlie Morton went on the disabled list with a lat injury. Jake Kaplan, “Jankowski Called to Majors,” Houston Chronicle, May 23, 2017: C5; Jake Kaplan, “Anticipate Keuchel, McCann Playing Today,” Houston Chronicle, May 27, 2017: C3; Hunter Atkins, “Right Lat Strain Sends Morton to Disabled List,” Houston Chronicle, May 29, 2017: C3.

9 As it happened, the Astros acquired Pressly in a July 2018 trade with the Twins. As of July 2023, he had saved 100 regular-season games and 11 postseason games for Houston, made two AL All-Star teams, and closed out two combined no-hitters, including Game Four of the 2022 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

10 Buxton returned to the Twins’ lineup a day later. He was awarded a Gold Glove in 2017, and his 2.6 defensive Wins Above Replacement that season, as determined by Baseball-Reference.com, tied Mookie Betts of the Boston Red Sox for best among AL outfielders.

11 Jake Kaplan, “Crazy-8th Comeback: Despite Rain Interrupting 11-Run Outburst, 6-Run Deficit Washed Away,” Houston Chronicle, May 30, 2017: C1.

12 Kaplan, “Crazy-8th Comeback.”

13 Chip Scoggins, “Spurning Fresh Arms Leads to Baffling Bullpen Fiasco,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2017: C1.

14 Scoggins, “Spurning Fresh Arms Leads to Baffling Bullpen Fiasco.”

15 Phil Miller, “It Literally Could Get Worse—And It Did: Astros Teed off for 14 Runs Over the Last Two Innings,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2017: C1. The Twins finished 2017 in second place in the AL Central Division behind the Indians and lost the AL wild-card game to the New York Yankees, who fell to the Astros in the ALCS. Santana made the All-Star team for the second time in his career and was seventh in the AL Cy Young Award voting.

16 As the May 29 game was played at Target Field in Minneapolis, Houston’s performance was not implicated in later allegations that the Astros employed an illegal electronic sign-stealing system during home games in 2017. Martino, 169.

17 After the game, the Astros optioned Jankowski again. He returned to the majors briefly in June and August, making his third major-league appearance with an inning in relief on August 2 against Tampa Bay. Houston designated Jankowski for assignment in August and lost him on waivers to the Los Angeles Dodgers; he spent the rest of the 2017 season at Triple A for the Dodgers. He appeared in Triple A with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018, his final season of affiliated professional baseball.