Jose Berrios struggled at times during the second half of the season, but any doubts about his post-season readiness likely were eliminated Friday after he struck out nine over six innings in a 6-2 win over the Kansas City Royals.
Berrios went the distance in the rain-shortened affair and improved to 14-8 with a 3.68 ERA. He also pitched 200 innings for the first time in his career and 21 of his 32 starts were quality starts.
The Twins wasted no time in giving Berrios a run-scoring cushion. They scored two runs in the top of the first inning, then followed that with two in the second and two in the third. Miguel Sano and Ryan LaMarre both homered and the ageless one, Nelson Cruz, went 3-for-4 and is now hitting .309 with 40 home runs.
Reliever Cody Stashak gets the ball on Saturday.
Extra innings…
-Friday’s win was the Twins’ 100th victory of the season, making it the second time in team history that they have won 100 or more games. Two more wins and they can tie the 1965 club for most wins in a season.
-There are now four, 100-win teams in major league baseball: Twins, Yankees, Astros and Dodgers. There also are four teams with 100 or more losses: Detroit, Baltimore, Miami and Kansas City.
-It turns out that Jake Odorizzi did make his final regular-season start earlier this week because now Martin Perez is set to get the ball on Sunday, according to MLB.com.
-Cleveland fell short of winning the AL Central this year and now they won’t be in the postseason at all after they lost 8-2 to the Washington Nationals.
-Twins manager Rocco Baldelli is the seventh manager in MLB history to win 100 or more games in his first season, according to MLB.com.