INNEAPOLIS -- He won't be an all star, but Brian Dozier hit his second walk-off home run of the week as the Minnesota Twins scored seven runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to come back and beat the Detroit Tigers 8-6 on Friday night.

The Tigers built a 6-0 lead off of Twins pitcher Ervin Santana, who was making his second start of the season with the team.

After scoring one run in the eighth inning, Minnesota was staring at a 6-1 deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning and a second consecutive home loss to the third place Tigers seemed inevitable.

But then the rally of the year happened.

Joe Mauer started it off with an infield single. Rookie Miguel Sano then hit a ground rule double to left field to give the Twins runners at first and third.

After Trevor Plouffe struck out, Eddie Rosario singled to left field to score Mauer and move Sano to third. With the score 6-2, Detroit brought in their closer Joakim Soria, who promptly walked Aaron Hicks to load the bases.

A slow breaking ball that was too far inside then hit Kurt Suzuki to bring in another run and cut the Tigers lead to 6-3.

With the bases loaded and one out, Danny Santana hit a line drive past Soria into center field that scored two more runs to make the score 6-5 before Brian Dozier provided the most memorable moment for the Twins in years.

Dozier, who lost out on the final vote for the 2015 MLB All Star Game earlier in the day, crushed the first pitch he saw -- a hanging breaking ball -- into the left field bleachers for a three-run home run to give the Twins an improbable 8-6 victory.

In doing so, Dozier became the first player since 2002 to hit two walk off home runs in a five day span and now has 19 home runs on the season.

With the win, the Twins improve to 47-40 on the season. Game three of the four-game series is scheduled for 3:05 p.m. today with Phil Hughes (7-6) taking the mound for Minnesota against Alfredo Simon (8-5) and the Tigers.

 

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