Pablo López strong, Twins continue their progress with a 6-1 victory over Astros

HOUSTON – The Twins failed to force a Game 5 of their American League Division Series against Houston last October, so we’ll never know if Pablo López would have dominated the Astros once again in the deciding game of series.

But “this is how I hoped it would go,” López said after pitching seven solid innings Friday.

The right-hander allowed just six hits and allowed only one Astros player — Alex Bregman, who hit López’s lone error to the left-field foul pole — to reach third base as Minnesota won for the eighth time in 10 games, 6-1 inside the minute. Maid park.

López, who pitched seven shutout innings here in the Twins’ only ALDS victory, was a different pitcher than the one who allowed 16 runs in his last 16 innings. Hell, he even looked different, having cut his beard into a goatee.

“He looked like one of those assassins from the TV show Breaking Bad,” wide receiver Ryan Jeffers said admiringly.

Launched like an assassin too. López’s fastball velocity reached 96 mph and his sweeper helped him rack up 17 swings and misses. He allowed a few hits in the field but virtually no hard contact, struck out six, walked only one and, aside from the first-pitch sweeper that Bregman hit at just 96.2 mph and didn’t made it 348 feet to the Crawford Boxes, he had little difficulty in controlling. the Astros lineup. He threw just 93 pitches to go seven innings, his longest start since Opening Day.

“During the bullpen warming up, I told him, ‘That’s the best I’ve seen you since last year.’ He looked really good,” Jeffers said. “He really is an ace. He knows it.”

Astros starter Ronel Blanco, meanwhile, absorbed his first loss of the season and easily his worst start to 2024. Blanco, who was no-hit for the Blue Jays in April, allowed just three hits, but four points, partly because he also walked three twins.

The Twins’ biggest weapon against the right-hander, who served a 10-game suspension earlier this month when a foreign substance was found on his glove? Patience.

In the third inning, Willi Castro hit a triple against the centerfield wall on the sixth pitch of his at-bat, and Jose Miranda fought through an 11-pitch standoff before drawing a walk . Blanco struck out Trevor Larnach, but Carlos Correa followed with an RBI double to right field and Alex Kirilloff hit a sacrifice fly, giving the Twins the lead with a 32-pitch inning.

Two innings later, Castro led off with a nine-pitch walk and Miranda flied out on Blanco’s fourth pitch. Then came Larnach, who made it 3-2, fouled off a few runs and crushed the ninth pitch of the bat 401 feet over the center field wall, a two-run shot.

“Everyone in our lineup was out there with a good plan. He didn’t have a lot of quick runs,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He had to work and we got him out of there early.”

BOXSCORE: Twins 6, Houston 1

Carlos Santana also homered, off reliever Alex Speas, and Jeffers set up another run by doubling Max Kepler, who was hit by a pitch, to third. Kepler scored on Manuel Margot’s grounder to shortstop. Jeffers had an extra-base hit in nine straight games, passing Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew and Miguel Sanó for the second-longest such streak in Twins history; Brian Dozier holds the record with 11.

It was more than enough for López.

“A lot of people said he looked a lot meaner today as he was getting ready,” Baldelli said.

Could the secret to throwing really lie in López’s razor?

Maybe so, López muses about her new look. He also tried it last year, with similar results.

“Sometimes we think it has to be something mechanical, throwing,” López said. “What if it was something different? I had to take a chance.”