The Twins got back to winning in a hurry on Saturday. The club scored in the first inning, the Oakland A’s followed suit, and then the Twins went to work, cracking a double, home run, single, single, double, single, double and one more single to take an 8-1 lead en route to an easy 10-2 win over the Athletics. The Twins improved to 5-1 versus Oakland this season.
The Twins scored those 10 runs on 16 hits, and the top of the order was an absolute meat grinder as Manuel Margot, Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis and Jose Miranda accounted for 11 of the 16 hits.
As hot as the offense was, perhaps the pitching was even better as starter Bailey Ober pitched his first complete game, striking out 10 batters over nine innings with no walks and two runs allowed on 89 pitches. He is now 7-4 with a 4.50 ERA.
“I knew my pitch count was low just because there were a lot of fast innings,” Ober told MLB.com. “But after the seventh inning, I walked past [pitching coach Pete Maki] and said, ‘I’m finishing this thing.’”
The Twins go for the series win on Sunday. Pablo Lopez gets the ball.
Extra innings…
-I am again reminded of the 1973 Twins, who beat the A’s in 14 of 18 meetings that season, including a sweep of the team in Oakland in late September. On Sept. 26, the Twins beat them one more time and pitcher Bert Blyleven earned win No. 20.
Here’s how the Minneapolis Tribune reported the win:
“Bert Blyleven became a 20-game winner Wednesday night for the first time in his four-year career with the Minnesota Twins by stopping the Oakland Athletics 4-1 on one hit, an infield single in the fifth inning.
“Ninth-inning home runs with the bases empty by Tony Oliva and George Mitterwald broke a 1-1 tie and gave Blyleven a triumph over 21-game winner Catfish Hunter. The Twins were the only team to defeat Hunter, now 21-5, twice this season, but it figured. Minnesota beat the American League West champions 14 of the 18 times they met.”
You would think the Twins won the division that season, but they did not, finishing in third place at 81-81 while the A’s went on to win the World Series. If the Twins had no trouble against Oakland, who couldn’t they beat that season? Take a guess. That’s right, the New York Yankees, who beat them nine times in 12 meetings.
Sources: MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com