MINNEAPOLIS — The Sonny Gray and Joey Gallo that the Yankees thought they were getting showed up on Monday night at Target Field.
Together, they kicked the Yankees while they were already down.
Gray and Gallo, who served as punching bags for much of their respective tenures in The Bronx before being traded out of town, returned the favor and combined to haunt their old team, lifting the Twins to a 6-1 win over the Yankees.
Facing a recently scuffling Yankees lineup, Gray only worsened its funk as he threw seven shutout innings while striking out eight and giving up just three hits on a chilly night at the ballpark.
Gallo, meanwhile, crushed a 432-foot solo home run in the fourth inning to extend the Twins’ lead to 4-0.
It was his sixth home run in 13 games this season.
The combination made it a painful night for the Yankees (13-10), who lost for the third time in their last four games.
This once again exposed their need for some help in the starting rotation and served as another lackluster night from their offense, which has now averaged just 3.7 runs over its last 13 games.
Eleven days after not making it out of a first inning from hell against the Twins (13-10), Jhony Brito had another rough start against them.
This time around, he retired six of the first seven batters he faced but needed 80 pitches to last just 2 ²/₃ innings while giving up three runs and forcing the bullpen to cover 5 ¹/₃ innings in the midst of 16 games in 16 days.
Gray, four-plus years after the Yankees traded him away because he could not cut it in New York, looked untouchable while lowering his ERA to 0.62 across five starts.
He gave up a single to Gleyber Torres in the second inning that was immediately erased on a double play.
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Aaron Judge doubled high off the right-field wall with one out in the fourth inning, but he was eventually stranded at third base.
And DJ LeMahieu’s leadoff single in the fifth inning was soon erased by another double play.
Then there was Gallo.
The first baseman/outfielder was on the injured list last week when the Twins visited The Bronx, but he made his impact felt on Monday, going 1-for-3 with a walk and the second-deck blast off reliever Greg Weissert.
Gallo is now batting .243 with a 1.121 OPS as a Twin.
“Obviously, some well-documented struggles with us, but we never lost sight of what a good player he is and can be,” manager Aaron Boone said before the game. “I don’t think it’s surprising to us necessarily that he’s having some success here.”
The Twins signed Gallo to a one-year, $11 million contact over the offseason, hoping he could put together a bounce-back season after a rough tenure in pinstripes — when he batted .159 with a .660 OPS in 140 games across parts of two seasons.
“I think it was very tough on him,” Boone said. “It absolutely wore on him. It was the real deal. But I respected how he handled it. He never ran from it, he never wanted out of the lineup. As best he could, he faced it and owned it. I know what a tough time it probably was in his life and the challenges he’s faced, but he had my respect in the way that he always continued to fight and compete.”
Once Gray’s night was over, the Yankees had a chance to get back into the game as they finally put multiple runners on base at the same time in the eighth inning off reliever Griffin Jax.
But Anthony Rizzo left the bases loaded, striking out on three pitches to end the threat.
The Yankees then loaded the bases again with no outs in the ninth inning and finally pushed across a run on a fielder’s choice ground ball by Oswaldo Cabrera.
