![\"Minnesota](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STP-Z-TWINS-ZEBBY-0630.jpg\")
Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Zebby Matthews delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros in Houston, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo\/Jon Shapley)<\/p>\nHOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Royce Lewis and Victor Caratini hit back-to-back homers, Zebby Matthews pitched seven stingy innings and the Minnesota Twins held off a late rally by the Houston Astros for a 5-4 victory Monday night.<\/p>\n
Josh Bell launched a two-run shot for the Twins, who led 5-1 before Travis Adams gave up a two-run homer to Taylor Trammell with two outs in the ninth.<\/p>\n
Yoendrys G\u00f3mez entered and immediately served up Cam Smith\u2019s second home run of the game before retiring Joey Loperfido on a grounder for his ninth save.<\/p>\n
Houston had won five of six.<\/p>\n
Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Zebby Matthews delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros in Houston, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo\/Jon Shapley)<\/p>\n
Matthews (4-5) limited the Astros to one run and four hits while striking out seven and walking one.<\/p>\n
Peter Lambert (6-5) held Minnesota hitless until Lewis and Caratini went deep in the fourth. Bell\u2019s drive made it 4-1 in the sixth, and Kody Clemens added an RBI groundout in the seventh.<\/p>\n
Lambert allowed four runs and five hits in 5 2\/3 innings. He had won four straight decisions.<\/p>\n
Smith pulled a hanging slider onto the train tracks above left field for a solo homer in the fifth.<\/p>\n
Astros reliever Miguel Ullola made his major league debut, striking out four in two scoreless innings.<\/p>\n
Houston returned home from a 5-2 trip and entered Monday an AL-best 15-10 in June.<\/p>\n
Astros shortstop Jeremy Pe\u00f1a sat out with left leg discomfort.<\/p>\n
Minnesota placed left-handed reliever Anthony Banda on the 15-day injured list with a left lat strain. The Twins recalled right-hander Cody Laweryson from Triple-A St. Paul.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Twins RHP Joe Ryan (5-4, 3.18 ERA) faces Astros RHP Mike Burrows (3-8, 5.48) in the middle game of the series Tuesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Royce Lewis and Victor Caratini hit back-to-back homers, Zebby Matthews pitched seven stingy innings and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,55030,7677,154],"class_list":["post-355293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}