Eric Thames has a penchant for game-changing home runs this season.

Thames hit a two-run homer that accounted for the game’s only runs as the Milwaukee Brewers slipped past the Minnesota Twins 2-0 on Tuesday. Thames has three home runs in the past six games.

”I’d say that’s a hot streak Johnathan Abram Jersey ,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said.

Eight of Thames’ 12 homers have put the Brewers on the board and seven have given his team a lead.

Milwaukee broke through in the fifth against Minnesota starter Jake Odorizzi (3-6) when pinch-hitter Nate Orf walked and stole second before Thames lined a homer that just cleared the right-field fence.

”It was a cutter that didn’t get in far enough,” Odorizzi said. ”I just didn’t execute it, plain and simple. I just didn’t get enough break on it. Right pitch, just bad execution and it turns out to be the deciding factor.”

Thames reached base three times in four at-bats. After the game, he credited Milwaukee’s pitching, which held Minnesota to two hits.

”Our bullpen has been the hammer for us,” Thames said. ”They have been the ones to pick us up, but we need to start scoring more, getting guys on base and driving them in and give them breathing room.”

It wasn’t just the bullpen on this day.

Milwaukee starter Junior Guerra (5-5) pitched five shutout innings. He gave up two hits while walking three and striking out eight and pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the first after giving up a double and two walks.

”Being able to put up a zero up there and not let them score was very big,” Guerra said through team translator Carlos Brizuela. ”Walks are very lethal, especially for a starter.”

Josh Hader pitched a season-high three innings in relief for the Brewers and didn’t allow a hit. Closer Corey Knebel notched his ninth save in 11 attempts by striking out the side in the ninth.

Both starting pitchers held their opponents in check but struggled with high pitch counts. Guerra threw 89 pitches. Odorizzi gave up two runs and four hits in five innings. He walked four and struck out nine but threw 109 pitches.

The Twins fell to 1-7 on their current nine-game road trip.

INFIELD INACTIVITY

The Twins became the first team whose first baseman, Joe Mauer, played an entire game and had no putouts or assists since Edwin Encarnacion did it with Toronto against Baltimore on Aug. 25, 2012. This has happened just six other times in the past 20 years and never to the Twins.

”There wasn’t a ground ball today, which is a baseball oddity,” Molitor said. ”I can’t really explain it other than Odorizzi http://www.raidersauthorizedshops.com/authentic-trayvon-mullen-jersey , we know, is a fly ball guy.”

CHOKED UP

In the ninth, home plate umpire Marty Foster called Jake Cave out on strikes but didn’t raise his arm right away with the signal, prompting an argument from Molitor.

”It looked like, as simply as I can state it, that he wasn’t going to make the call,” Molitor said. ”Jake made the mistake of walking away, and it looked like (Foster) put his arm up after the fact. He said that he had called it right away but that he was choking on his Nicorette mints.”

TRAINER’S ROOM

Twins: Recalled LHP Gabriel Moya from Triple-A Rochester and optioned RHP Zack Littell to Rochester. Littell was the losing pitcher in Monday’s 10-inning game. …2B Brian Dozier didn’t start so he could rest but entered the game in the seventh. ”It’s always tough to sit (Dozier),” Molitor said. ”I think if he had his druthers, he would play 162 games and start them all.”

Brewers: OF Christian Yelich didn’t start for the fifth consecutive game due to lower back tightness but entered in the ninth as a defensive replacement. ..OF Lorenzo Cain (left groin strain) is eligible to come off the DL on Wednesday, but Brewers manager Craig Counsell said he likely won’t be in the lineup right away. ”There’s enough caution there that we’ve got to get over the last hurdle,” Counsell said. ”We’re not to 100 percent yet.” … RHP Zach Davies (right shoulder tightness) is dealing with back soreness and stiffness. ”He won’t throw until that’s gone,” Counsell said. ”That’s going to set him back.”

UP NEXT

Twins: Jose Berrios (8-6, 3.52 ERA) gets the start in the three-game series finale. Berrios will face the Brewers for the first time in his career.

Brewers: Chase Anderson (6-6, 4.18) has held opponents to a .208 batting average this season.

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Claims of self-defense by the man who killed former NFL player Joe McKnight withered under scrutiny, a prosecutor told jurors Friday Maxx Crosby Jersey , but a defense lawyer insisted the shooter fired as McKnight approached his car, spewing obscenities and threats following a traffic confrontation in December 2016.

The conflicting claims were made in opening statements in the second-degree murder trial of Ronald Gasser, 56.

Defense lawyer Matthew Goetz said authorities in suburban New Orleans were under political pressure to make an arrest when Gasser was jailed days after the shooting. Goetz alluded to racial unrest that year in American cities, including the St. Louis area and Baton Rouge. Gasser is white; McKnight was black.

Seth Shute, an assistant District Attorney in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish, acknowledged that Gasser was initially freed after the shooting. But Shute said Gasser was arrested after investigators talked to numerous witnesses and assembled physical evidence contradicting Gasser’s claim that McKnight, 28, had tried to lunge into his car through a passenger window after both vehicles stopped at a busy intersection.

Jurors were selected Tuesday. Opening statements were delayed because unusually frigid winter weather in south Louisiana prompted a two-day closure of the parish courthouse in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna.

Shute said jurors will hear from dozens of witnesses. Some will testify about what Shute called a ”mobile shouting match” that began on a bridge spanning the Mississippi River in New Orleans and continued into neighboring Jefferson Parish, Shute said. Others will talk about hearing the pop-pop-pop of three gunshots, seeing McKnight fall and watching as Gasser exited his car with his handgun still smoking.

Jurors also will hear a police officer recount Gasser’s first words at the shooting scene: ”He cut me off and got out on me.”

McKnight drove his gray SUV aggressively that afternoon, Shute acknowledged. There was a small amount of marijuana in his system and a ”therapeutic dose level” of Oxycodone in his system, he added, having noted that McKnight was training in hopes of returning to the NFL after an injury cut his pro career short.

But he said there was no gunpowder residue on McKnight, indicating he was not shot at the close range Gasser had indicated. And an examination of the wounds indicated that McKnight’s hands were resting on the window of Gasser’s car, with no sign that he had aggressively moved to get inside.

”His version of events does not match the physical evidence,” Shute said.

But Goetz countered that Hakeem Butler Jersey , ”Ronnie believed he (McKnight) was coming after him.”

He also claimed that, McKnight ”was trying to kill” Gasser by running him off the road in traffic, before the shooting.

McKnight was considered the No. 1 running back recruit in the country when he came out of John Curtis Christian School in Louisiana in 2006. He signed with the University of Southern California, where he ran for 2,213 yards and 13 touchdowns and caught 66 passes for 542 yards and two scores in three seasons.

In the NFL, he played three seasons for the New York Jets and one with the Kansas City Chiefs. He spent a season in the Canadian Football League, playing two games for the Edmonton Eskimos and three for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

He was shot Dec. 1, 2016. Gasser never left the shooting scene and was initially freed after more than eight hours of questioning – which Shute said jurors will see.

Gasser’s release sparked protests, and some said race played a role in his release. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand, who has since retired, angrily denied that race played any role in the case. He recounted a painstaking investigation with more than 160 interviews.

Arrested on a manslaughter charge four days after the shooting, Gasser was indicted by a grand jury on the second-degree murder charge in February. If convicted as charged he would be sentenced to life in prison.

The trial is expected to last well into next week with state District Judge Ellen Kovach presiding.

The case echoes another New Orleans-area road-rage shooting from 2016. Former New Orleans Saints star Will Smith was gunned down that April. The shooter was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 25 years.