Simeon Woods Richardson strikes out 11 in six innings as Twins two-hit Yankees

Phil Miller, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Sep 15, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — Simeon Woods Richardson still calls suburban Houston his home. But Target Field sure looks like a pretty good runner-up.

The Twins right-hander, who has given up more than three runs at home only once all season, was at his best Monday night, holding the game’s highest-scoring team to zero runs over six innings and the sport’s most frequent home run hitters without a long ball for the second time in 22 games.

Most impressively, Woods Richardson struck out a career-high 11 batters in handing the New York Yankees — the Twins’ decades-long tormenter — their first shutout against Minnesota since 2008, 7-0 at Target Field.

It was the Twins’ second victory over New York in their past 12 meetings, and Woods Richardson’s career-high seventh victory of the season, five of them coming in downtown Minneapolis, where his ERA stands at 3.05 in 11 starts. That’s nearly three runs better than the Texan’s 5.89 mark on the road.

For a while, it appeared that the Twins would require that sort of performance to beat the Yankees, who were 14-6 since Aug. 24. Austin Martin beat out a double-play ball in the fourth inning to score Jhonny Pereda, and Brooks Lee socked a solo home run to lead off the fifth — but those were the only two runs of support the Twins could provide against Yankees All-Star Carlos Rodón.

When New York manager Aaron Boone lifted Rodón — who owned a 9-3 career record against the Twins before Monday — in favor of right-handed reliever Luke Weaver to start the seventh inning, however, the Twins erupted for five runs, to the delight of the announced 22,001 in attendance.

Back-to-back doubles by pinch hitter Trevor Larnach and Lee started the inning off right for the Twins, and back-to-back one-out walks to Edouard Julien and Byron Buxton loaded the bases. Martin followed with a double down the line and into the left-field corner, scoring all three. Camilo Doval replaced Weaver and Luke Keaschall greeted him by grounding a ball up the middle through the Yankees’ drawn-in infield, giving the Twins their largest lead in a week.

But the night belonged to Woods Richardson, making his first career start against the Yankees. He gave up only two hits over six innings, and never let a New York batter reach third base.

And in the fourth inning, he needed only 11 pitches to strike out the side, getting Giancarlo Stanton, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Paul Goldschmidt. Woods Richardson ended the third inning by whiffing Cody Bellinger, too, and opened the fifth with a strikeout of Ryan McMahon, giving him five consecutive strikeouts.

The right-hander finished his night by fooling Bellinger with a splitter and blowing a fastball past Stanton for strikeout No. 11 — seven was his previous career high — and pumped his fist as he walked toward the dugout. Woods Richardson got 16 swing-and-misses in his six-inning mastery.

Kody Funderburk, Travis Adams and Pierson Ohl pitched an inning apiece to finish off the shutout, just as Joe Nathan did in the ninth inning at the Metrodome on Aug. 11, 2008, preserving Glen Perkins’ eight innings of shutout ball, back before the left-hander turned into Nathan’s replacement as an All-Star closer.

After walking two batters with two out in the eighth, Adams got some extra help from Martin, who reached far into the left-field seats to catch Bellinger’s inning-ending long foul ball. The Yankees challenged the call, arguing that a fan in a Yankees hat had touched the ball before it reached Martin’s glove. But the replay was inconclusive, and the out call stood, the shutout preserved.

Beating Rodón, the longtime White Sox left-hander, was something rare for the Twins, too, something that hadn’t happened since 2018. The Yankees, holding on to the AL’s top wild-card spot, fell five games behind AL East-leading Toronto.

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