A win by the Washington Nationals over the Minnesota Twins made the American League Central Division race a lot more interesting.

Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto each homered and drove in three runs as the Nationals beat Minnesota 12-6 Thursday night, cutting the Twins divisional lead to 3 ½ games ahead of a critical series in Cleveland.

Minnesota’s divisional lead fell for the second straight game as the Twins head to Cleveland for three-game series beginning Friday, the final games between the teams this season. Cleveland was idle Thursday. The Twins lost three games off their lead in the last five days.

Lefthander Patrick Corbin (12-7) pitched effectively for six innings at Target Field, limiting baseball’s top home run-hitting team to three runs on nine hits. Twins DH Nelson Cruz hit Minnesota’s one homer off Corbin in the third, his 36th, an estimated 454-foot blast into the restaurant above the batter’s eye in center field.

For St. Thomas, Senior Karl Wachter cruised to victory over the four-mile course to lead Tommie Men’s Cross Country to Wednesday’s razor-thin 28-29 win over Macalester in the annual Summit Cup dual meet.

The competition was held at St. Catherine University.
Wachter, running his first race of the season, recorded a 21:04 time and topped runner-up Jake Lepak of Macalester by 36 seconds.

St. Thomas had 15 of the first 20 finishers.

The Tommies will have some runners competing Sept. 21 at the Carleton Invite.
No. 18 Tommie volleyball plays four matches Friday and Saturday at the UW-Eau Claire tournament. Friday’s contests are against No. 9-ranked Eau Claire and No. 19-ranked Carthage.

The Tommie football, volleyball and soccer teams have built a 13-1-2 record so far, all in non-conference play. Tommie Men’s Golf has won both tournaments it has entered.

Althea Larson can be reached at lars2360@stthomas.edu