Houston Astros at Minnesota Twins: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOU | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 0 |
| MIN | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
The Story
The Houston Astros held off the Minnesota Twins 3-2 at Target Field on October 11, 2023, completing the victory on Ryan Pressly's strikeout of Max Kepler to end the ninth inning, a moment that swung win probability 31.6 points in Houston's favor and proved to be the single most consequential play of the game. The DiamondIQ model had opened with a 54 percent pre-game home win probability for Minnesota, but by the final out that figure had fallen to zero.
The decisive offensive blow came in the top of the fourth inning, when José Abreu connected on a home run off Caleb Thielbar that shifted win probability 19.5 points toward Houston and gave the Astros the lead they would never relinquish. Minnesota responded in the sixth when Edouard Julien hit a home run off José Urquidy to pull the Twins within one, a swing worth 13.7 points of win probability for the home side. Julien's earlier momentum, however, was effectively erased in the eighth when he struck out against Bryan Abreu, costing Minnesota 12.9 points of win probability, and Jorge Polanco's strikeout to open the ninth shed another 8.5 points before Pressly closed the door on Kepler.
On the pitching side, Bryan Abreu led all pitchers with a 23.3-point WPA contribution, followed by Urquidy at plus-12.0 and Héctor Neris at plus-11.3, a trio that collectively neutralized a Minnesota lineup that managed just three hits. Among batters, Kepler finished with the highest WPA at plus-27.3 despite a negative RE24 of minus-0.6, a reflection of how much his final at-bat outcome mattered in leverage terms. Abreu posted plus-18.5 WPA to go with plus-1.6 RE24, and the DiamondIQ model favors his fourth-inning home run as the play that most defined the game's ultimate outcome.