Minnesota Twins run winning streak to 13 games with their third shutout in a row

MILWAUKEE – It wasn’t enough for the Twins that they won 13 games in a row, the second-longest winning streak in team history. Now they’ve decided to stop giving up runs.

Pablo López pitched six scoreless innings Saturday night, and the Twins picked up their third consecutive shutout victory with a 7-0 win over the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. Twins pitchers haven’t given up a run in their past 33 innings, a team record, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

It’s the second time in team history the Twins recorded shutouts in three consecutive games. The last time was July 5-7, 2004, when Brad Radke, Johan Santana and Kyle Lohse pitched consecutive shutouts against Kansas City at the Metrodome.

The Twins became the first MLB team to post a 13-game winning streak since Tampa Bay did it to begin the 2023 season. The only Twins team that carried a longer winning streak — the 1991 Twins won 15 in a row in June — won a World Series.

“It’s been a pretty nice run the boys have been going on, but I prefer not to talk about it too much,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I prefer to just let them keep playing the way they’re playing and pitching the way they’re pitching.”

The Twins are in a phase in which almost everything is working. They recorded a season-high 18 hits. The bullpen has its own 17⅓-inning scoreless streak. They didn’t have a player leave because of an injury for the first time in their past five games, though López took a line drive to his rear against his first batter.

“The pitching staff is doing such a good job,” said Brooks Lee, who had two hits and two RBI. “We’re in every game.”

The Twins scored one run in each of the first six innings, and they scored again in the ninth. They had at least two baserunners in eight of the nine innings.

“A great example of having a real relentless approach at the plate,” Baldelli said. “Seven different innings you score a run. You don’t see that often. There’s a reason. It’s not easy to do, but you have to do so many things right to score in seven different innings, even one run in seven.”

López, backed with an early lead while pitching in front of an announced sellout crowd of 40,267, gave up two hits and two walks while striking out six. He issued a two-out walk in the first inning, putting two runners on base, then he retired 16 of his final 18 batters.

The Brewers, who totaled three hits, have been shut out in four of their past five games.

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“We have such a good thing going from the pitching and the hitting, so I just let that take over me,” said López, who credited catcher Christian Vázquez‘s pitch calling. “It makes it easier when the offense keeps putting a run up almost every inning. It makes my job easier to be in the dugout and be like, ‘We scored, they don’t,’ the mantra and mentality we’ve been having. It’s incredibly fun.”

Ryan Jeffers, who served as the designated hitter, set the tone for the offense when he crushed a high fastball for a solo home run on the game’s third pitch, a 420-foot blast to left field off Brewers starter Tobias Myers.

“For them it’s like a punch in the mouth,” said Jeffers, who finished a triple shy of the cycle. “As soon as we score early with how well we’re pitching, it definitely puts them in a hole.”

The Twins compiled 11 hits in their first four innings.

Royce Lewis hit a leadoff double in the second inning — his first extra-base hit of the season — and Vázquez delivered a two-out RBI single to center, complete with a bat flip as he ran up the first base line.

BOXSCORE: Twins 7, Milwaukee 0

MLB standings

The Twins missed an opportunity to land a knockout blow in the third inning, when four hits produced only one run because Lee was thrown out at the plate by Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick. In the fourth inning, Lee drove in a run with a line drive that deflected off the glove of a leaping Brice Turang at second base.

All the 50/50 plays that went against the Twins in the first few weeks of the season have shifted in their favor now.

The Brewers loaded the bases with one out in the seventh inning against reliever Justin Topa, threatening the Twins’ scoreless streak. Topa induced a pop-up back to mound on a broken bat and a groundout.

“You don’t want to be the guy that ends that streak,” López said. “Talk about motivation and a little bit of pressure.”