Twins 10, Orioles 1: 8-run sixth leads to sweep for Twins

Baseball can be funny sometimes. A heated pitcher’s duel can quickly turn into a rout by one team. That was the story today, as the offense from both sides was lacking for the first half of this game thanks to the efforts Jake Odorizzi and Alex Cobb. In the bottom of the fifth, though, Mitch Garver put a stop to that, blasting a 2-run homer to the second deck in left field.

Jake Odorizzi wasn’t perfect today, and it wasn’t always pretty, but he was effective. He capped off a 6 inning shutout performance by striking out Chris Davis on three pitches, stranding 2 Orioles base runners. He gave up five hits, walking just one and striking out five batters along the way to a win.

The Twins broke the game wide open in the 6th inning. Brian Dozier lead off with a double, and Eduardo Escobar followed that with a homer. After three straight singles loaded the bases, Garver hit a grounder to Manny Machado who tried to throw home but his throw drew the catcher off of the plate, allowing the run to score. Then Jake Cave, the cave for Jakes, picked up an RBI single. Jorge Polanco grounded out to first for another RBI, and then Brian Dozier hit a 3-run homer to left to make it 10-0. That’s six total bases for Dozier in that inning, not too shabby.

The last three innings were pretty uneventful. Matt Belisle and Taylor Rogers each picked up a scoreless inning, but Matt Magill gave up a solo HR to Chris Davis in the 9th. The Twins complete the sweep of the Orioles, and move to 39-48. They’re now 9.5 games back of the Indians, who lost today.

The Orioles are bad, folks.

Studs:

Brian Dozier: 2-4, 2B, HR, 3 RBI

Mitch Garver: 1-3, BB, HR, 2 RBI

Max Kepler: 2-3, BB

Robbie Grossman: 2-4

Jake Odorizzi: 6 IP, 0 R, 5 H, 1 BB, 5 SO

Duds:

NO DUDS TWINS WIN!

COTG:

Hayden A