Twins’ Bomba Squad ready for Yankees’ Savages in ALDS

The Yankees have Aaron Boone to thank for his rant with an umpire that gave life to their 2019 nickname, the Savages.

The Twins have Eddie Rosario.

The left fielder crushed his 15th home run of the year on May 24, a game in which the Twins hit three long balls.

“When you’re hitting a lot of bombas, everybody’s hitting a lot of bombas, everybody’s happy,” Rosario said that night, using the Spanish word for bomb.

Soon, there were T-shirts, a hashtag and a rallying cry — Bomba Squad — that followed the Twins the rest of the season as they won the AL Central and held off the Yankees to break the MLB record with 307 home runs.

Now the Bomba Squad meets the Savages starting Friday in Game 1 of the ALDS. Much more than a home run record is on the line, but the power isn’t likely to go out.

“We’re here and that’s the moment,” third baseman Miguel Sano said Thursday at Yankee Stadium. “Part of the Bomba Squad. Let’s do it.”

Nelson Cruz was the only established power hitter on the Twins’ roster when the season began, but now he has company. The team that hit only 166 home runs last season got more than that from their top five deep threats alone. Cruz (41), Max Kepler (36), Sano (34), Rosario (32) and Mitch Garver (31) became the first set of five teammates in MLB history to hit 30-plus home runs in the same season.

The Twins hit .270 as a team, the second-best average in the majors, so they are confident that their offense is not home runs or bust. But knowing they can change a game with one swing doesn’t hurt, either.

“I see the other teams being afraid of us because anywhere we go, they talk about it,” said Cruz, who hit .311 to go with a 1.031 OPS. “It’s nice to know that when you go there, they know you’re there.”

The Yankees finished second to the Twins with 306 home runs, and that was without full seasons from Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge or Edwin Encarnacion. They had surprises, too, like Gleyber Torres hitting 38, Brett Gardner crushing 28 and Gio Urshela popping 21.

But the Twins’ lineup, even without the established names the Yankees boast when healthy, proved to be just as damaging.

“The ability to change the game with one swing — I think this is going to be a fun series in that way because the two teams that are playing probably have that quality unlike any two teams maybe that have ever played the game,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Numbers-wise, it’s hard to really doubt.

“I think the home runs are more of a product of good, quality at-bats and good swings from guys that have some strength. … What does our team do well? Our team hits homers. That’s what we do really well.”

The Twins’ pitching staff appreciates the offensive fireworks, even if they might not be hitting bombas themselves. While reliever Trevor May estimated the team got about 30 different Bomba Squad T-shirts, the bullpen tried to make their own with fire extinguishers on the front. It didn’t help right away — the Yankees were in town for the teams’ wild series in July the week the T-shirts arrived — but the bullpen has done a better job of putting out fires in the second half.

Still, they’re happy to leave the team-wide slogan to their teammates with the bats.

“I’ve been here five or six years,” May said. “We’ve been looking for our hashtag, our thing that kind of defines us. That just kind of made sense.”