Ervin Santana struck out 10 to earn his first home win, Eduardo Nunez and Miguel Sano homered, and the Minnesota Twins survived a ninth-inning rally to beat the Houston Astros 7-5 on Sunday.
Down 7-0 in the ninth, Chris Carter hit a three-run homer and Jose Altuve cracked a two-run shot that made it 7-5 before Trevor May struck out Marwin Gonzalez to end the game.
It was Santana’s 15th career game with double-digit strikeouts. He entered Sunday 0-1 with a 9.77 ERA in three starts at Target Field since returning from an 80-game suspension to start the season.
Lance McCullers (5-5) settled down after walking three of the first four batters he faced to begin the game before Nunez hit a 3-2 pitch off the upper deck in left-center field to make it 3-0 in the sixth.
After Eduardo Escobar added an RBI double in the seventh and scored on Joe Mauer’s single, Sano lined the 13th homer of his rookie season over the left-field wall to make it 7-0.
