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 Da'Shawn Hand 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 Marcus Cooper Jersey , 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, 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) Bernie Kosar Jersey ,” 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.

—

Third time was the charm for James Harden.

The Houston Rockets star was voted the NBA’s Most Valuable Player after twice being runner-up, beating out four-time winner LeBron James and Anthony Davis of the Pelicans at the NBA Awards.

Harden joined Michael Jordan as the only players to average at least 20 points, eight assists, five rebounds and 1.7 steals in a season.

He led the league in scoring, 3-pointers and 50-point games with four while helping the Rockets to an NBA-leading 65 wins.

James didn’t attend the show in Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport amid frenzied speculation about his future. He has until Friday to tell the Cavaliers if he will pick up his $35.6 million option for next season or opt for free agency.

Harden, who is from Los Angeles Braden Smith Jersey , led his mother on stage before he accepted the trophy from Commissioner Adam Silver.

Dwane Casey won the NBA’s Coach of the Year award for his work with his former team, the Toronto Raptors. He was fired last month and has since become coach of the Detroit Pistons.

Casey led the Raptors to the No. 1 seed in the East for the first time in franchise history. Toronto won a team-record 59 games. Casey coached the East in the All-Star Game for the first time.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) – Oscar Robertson commends the off-court activism of today’s NBA players, although the Hall of Famer wonders why more white athletes aren’t speaking out, too.

Robertson received the Lifetime Achievement Award from presenters Charles Barkley and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the NBA Awards.

Robertson is the career leader in triple-doubles and was the first player to average one for a season. His antitrust case against the NBA also ushered in free agency for players, which Robertson said was his most important assist.

The 79-year-old former guard who starred at Crispus Attucks High in Indianapolis and in college at Cincinnati before going to the NBA said it’s time for players to speak out about politics and education, among other issues.

”But the only thing that really bothers me is where are the white athletes when this is happening?” he said backstage. ”This is not a black athlete problem. You see injustice in the world. It’s all around you.”

COLLEGE BASEBALL

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Game 1 of the College World Series finals between Arkansas and Oregon State was postponed until Tuesday night because of rain – just the latest in a line of delays caused by the weather this year.

”In my 16 years of being involved with this championship, this has been the most challenging College World Series as it relates to inclement weather,” NCAA director of championships and alliances Randy Buhr said.

Rain fell most of the day, and officials announced late in the afternoon that the game would be delayed. The decision to postpone came 90 minutes after the scheduled first pitch.

Arkansas (47-19) will start Blaine Knight (13-0) against Luke Heimlich (16-2) of Oregon State (53-11-1) on Tuesday.

COLLEGE SPORTS

CHICAGO (AP) – A federal appeals court has backed an NCAA rule requiring most football players who transfer schools to sit out a year.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a lower-court finding that NCAA transfer rules don’t violate U.S. antitrust laws.

Monday’s decision was in a lawsuit brought by a former punter for Northern Illinois University, Peter Deppe. The ruling focuses on a requirement that most Division I football players who transfer to another school must sit out a year.

Deppe’s lawyers argued the Indianapolis-based NCAA enforces the rule primarily to ensure transfers don’t hurt the quality of the football and thereby cut into lucrative revenues. They say that makes it an unreasonable restraint on trade.

But the 7th Circuit rejected that. Its unanimous opinion accepted the NCAA’s concern that easy player transfers would undermine ”the amateur character of college athletics.”

A statement from the NCAA welcomed the ruling Tyron Smith Jersey , saying it was consistent with prior court rulings that recognize ”the NCAA’s ability to preserve college sports.”

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – UConn President Susan Herbst told Kevin Ollie she was upholding his firing because the former men’s basketball coach had a pattern of breaking NCAA rules and committed serious violations, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The school released the June 19 letter from Herbst to Ollie on Monday in response to open records requests from the AP and other news organizations.

Ollie has asserted that the violations which led to his firing in March were minimal and isolated.

Herbst denies that idea in the letter, writing that ”eventually even a series of `isolated’ or `de mimimis’ violations can become a pattern of non-compliance, which is what occurred in the Men’s Basketball program under your leadership.”

TENNIS

LONDON (AP) – Rafael Nadal is back at No. 1 in the ATP rankings, retaking the top spot from Roger Federer after just one week.

Monday’s new order is the sixth change of the year at No. 1, the most since there were eight in 1999.

The record is 10 switches at No. 1 in 1983.

Federer still is expected to be seeded No. 1 for Wimbledon, where he won his record eighth championship a year ago. The grass-court Grand Slam tournament’s seedings are scheduled to be announced Wednesday. Play begins next week.

Nadal holds a 50-point edge over Federer in the rankings and will hold onto No. 1 for at least the next three weeks.