Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Ervin Santana pitches to the Houston Astros in the first inning at Target Field on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2015.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Ervin Santana struck out 10 to earn his first home win, Eduardo Nunez and Miguel Sano homered, and the Minnesota Twins survived a ninth-inning rally to beat the Houston Astros 7-5 on Sunday.
Down 7-0 in the ninth, Chris Carter hit a three-run homer and Jose Altuve cracked a two-run shot that made it 7-5 before Trevor May struck out Marwin Gonzalez to end the game.
It was Santana's 15th career game with double-digit strikeouts. He entered Sunday 0-1 with a 9.77 ERA in three starts at Target Field since returning from an 80-game suspension to start the season.
Lance McCullers (5-5) settled down after walking three of the first four batters he faced to begin the game before Nunez hit a 3-2 pitch off the upper deck in left-center field to make it 3-0 in the sixth.
After Eduardo Escobar added a RBI double in the seventh and scored on Joe Mauer's single, Sano lined the 13th homer of his rookie season over the left-field wall to make it 7-0.
The affable Santana (3-4), who signed the richest free-agent deal in Twins' history during the offseason, has maintained a positive attitude despite going 0-4 with a 9.20 ERA in his last six starts before bouncing back Sunday.
Santana struck out Colby Rasmus with two runners on to end the sixth and fanned Hank Conger with a runner on to close the seventh.
Altuve finished with four hits.
TRAINER'S ROOM
Twins manager Paul Molitor said SP Phil Hughes might throw off a mound later this week as he continues to recover from a back injury that landed him on the DL retroactive to Aug. 10.
UP NEXT
After a day off on Monday, the Twins travel to Chicago where rookie Tyler Duffey (2-1, 4.29) will kick off the three-game series against White Sox ace Chris Sale (12-7, 3.20) on Tuesday night.
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