MINNEAPOLIS – Alex Call was watching from the dugout as Jacob Young attempted to bunt in the top of the third tonight. He saw his teammate foul that bunt off, but in the process get struck by the pitch on his right index finger, leaving him shaking his hand in obvious pain.

So while the Nationals tended to Young and ultimately escorted him off the field with what the club termed a contusion, Call readied himself to take over the at-bat with an 0-2 count already in place.

Call promptly delivered the Nats’ first run-scoring hit in 96 hours. Then for good measure he launched an opposite-field homer four innings later to help lead his team to a 9-3 victory over the Twins in the closest thing the outfielder can have to a homecoming game in the major leagues.

Though he will go out of his way to make sure you know he’s not from Minnesota, Call is from nearby River Falls, Wisc., just on the other side of the Mississippi River. And if ever there was a night to come through off the bench, this was most certainly it.

"I take the best of Minnesota and the best of Wisconsin," he said. "I'm a Packer fan, but I was a Twins fan. This is a really special area, and I'm a Midwest kid. The River Falls community is where I'm from. It's shaped me into who I am. It's a part of me, and it's fun to be back here."

Call was hardly alone in making this win possible. A Nationals lineup that had been shut out each of its last two games busted out against All-Star Joe Ryan and the Twins' bullpen. CJ Abrams delivered a three-run double. Luis García Jr. continued to hit baseballs 400-plus feet (and finally got one of them to clear the high right field wall at Target Field). And Josh Bell drove in a run and then scored a run on a wild pitch to extend the lead late and continue his team’s wild week at the plate.

The Nats’ run totals over their last six games: 1, 10, 6, 0, 0, 9. Feast or famine, to the extreme.

"Every day, I'm going to tell them we're facing the best pitchers, to see if there's a change," interim manager Miguel Cairo said of a lineup that for some reason seems to have more success against opposing aces than back-of-the-rotation arms. "Ryan has good stuff, but today ... after two days we didn't hit that well, we came and reacted and swung at strikes and put barrels on the ball."

They happily feasted tonight in unexpected fashion. The scoreless streak had reached 23 innings by the time the Nationals came up to bat in the top of the third. And with the bottom of the lineup due to bat against Ryan, there was little reason to believe the slump was going to end here.

But then Drew Millas led off the inning with a single to left, and Young attempted to bunt him into scoring position. That didn’t go well for Young, who had to leave the game with his finger injury. But Call was right there to take up his place.

Inheriting an 0-2 count, Call fought back to make it 2-2 and then sent a line drive single to left-center, with Millas (who stole second along the way) coming around to score the Nationals’ first run since the bottom of the sixth Tuesday night in D.C. 

"Well, 0-2 is the worst count," Call said. "But I feel good when I'm at two strikes. And also I know there's really no pressure. Everybody in the ballpark is like: '0-2 count, coming off the bench.' Not a lot of pressure. I kind of thrive in that situation. Time to go into battle mode, which is where I feel comfortable."

X-rays taken on Young's finger were negative, and interim manager Miguel Cairo said he'll be day-to-day with a contusion. With infielder Amed Rosario learning after tonight's game he was traded to the Yankees, the Nationals will need to promote a position player from Triple-A Rochester and get him to Minnesota in time for Sunday afternoon's series finale.

The Nats made it 2-0 one inning later when García, who had already hit a ball 406 feet to right-center Friday night and 394 feet to right-center in his first at-bat tonight without clearing the wall, turned on a fastball and drove it 390 feet to straightaway right field, a shorter distance but plenty deep at that portion of the ballpark for his eighth homer of the season.

"The first at-bat, I felt really sad," García said, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. "But then on the second at-bat, I felt really happy, like it was the first home run of my career."

The bottom of the lineup again delivered in the top of the fifth, with Daylen Lile and Millas each singling, then Call reaching on a popup in shallow right field dropped by second baseman Brooks Lee. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Abrams lashed a double down the right field line, bringing everybody home and extending the lead to 5-0, the most runs Ryan has allowed since April 20.

With five runs of support, Mitchell Parker had some margin for error. And the left-hander kind of needed it, because he found himself dealing with traffic most of the night. Only one of Parker’s sixth innings was truly clean (the second). Otherwise, he allowed at least one Minnesota batter to reach base in each frame.

Somehow, Parker found a way to navigate his way through all that with nobody crossing the plate through five innings, the Twins going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position to that point.

"It could've snowballed, and the game could've gone a completely different way," Parker said. "Being able to control that was definitely huge."

His luck ran out in the sixth, though, with three of the five batters he faced recording hits, two of them driving in runs. His night came to a conclusion after 99 pitches, with Luis Garcia recording the final out of the sixth thanks to a leaping grab at second base by García Jr., who apparently channeled his favorite basketball player in that moment.

"I love LeBron James," he said. "I think that's why I caught it."