MINNEAPOLIS — As the Yankees prepared for their game Tuesday, the visiting clubhouse at Target Field still smelled of stale champagne, the rug still wet from the morning cleaning it underwent hours after being drenched in a playoff-clinching celebration.
Otherwise, there were no signs of a hangover for the Yankees, who got back to work in what their manager called an “uphill battle” to overtake the Rays for the division title.
Cody Bellinger and Spencer Jones went deep while Max Fried turned in his best start since coming off the injured list again, the combination allowing the Yankees to cruise past the Twins 8-1.
The only real headache for the Yankees (88-63) was that the Rays kept winning, courtesy of another walk-off home run from Junior Caminero.
That meant the Yankees remained 3 ¹/₂ games back for first place in the AL East with 11 games to play, with their chances of catching up to the Rays for the division getting slimmer by the day, even with a four-game set against them awaiting next week.
For now, the Yankees controlled the only thing they could by beating up their longtime punching bag, the Twins (70-81).
They gave Fried a 2-0 lead before he even took the mound, courtesy of Bellinger’s two-run home run in the first, and then the left-hander ran with it.
Fried completed seven innings for the first time since April 22 and recorded his first win since April 27, as he scattered one run and six hits while walking none and striking out six across 88 pitches.
Still working on a pitch count in his fourth start back from a second IL stint for a left elbow bone bruise, Fried was much sharper than his last time out, when he could not make it out of the fourth inning against the Rockies.
The Yankees gave him plenty of support as they racked up 14 hits against right-hander Bailey Ober and the Twins bullpen.
Every member of the starting lineup had at least one hit, with Bellinger reaching base four times and Heliot Ramos, George Lombard Jr. and Anthony Volpe each reaching three times.
Jones delivered the crushing blow to break the Twins’ backs in the sixth inning, clobbering a three-run shot off lefty Taylor Rogers to put the Yankees ahead 7-1.
Before Jones swatted a sweeper 423 feet off him, Rogers had not allowed a home run to a left-handed hitter all season (in 133 plate appearances).
Jones, meanwhile, went deep against a lefty for the third time (of his 10 big league home runs), continuing to show he is worthy of starts against southpaws with plenty of them looming with the Red Sox in a likely AL wild-card series.
Earlier in the inning, Ramos had reached base for the third time by drilling an RBI double to the left field corner for the 4-1 lead.
Ramos, wearing No. 21 for the night to honor his fellow Puerto Rican on Roberto Clemente Day, went 2-for-4 with a walk while starting for Aaron Judge, who got the day off.
Ben Rice led off the game with another quality at-bat, roping the eighth pitch of his battle against Ober into right field for a single.
Bellinger then clubbed a 2-0 fastball down the middle over the high wall in right-center field for his 16th home run of the season and the 2-0 lead.
The Twins got a run back in the bottom of the second inning after Lombard was slow getting off a throw on a ground ball to shortstop by Royce Lewis, allowing him to reach for an infield single.
Lewis later stole second and scored on Emmanuel Rodriguez’s hard single up the middle with two outs, though Fried quickly erased Rodriguez with a pickoff to end the frame.
But Lombard made up for it in the next half-inning, shooting a single through the right side to score Ramos for the 3-1 lead.
