Bailey Ober won a duel of young starting pitchers on Friday, holding off rookie Peyton Battenfield for the visiting team. minnesota twins edged out cleveland patron 2–0 on Max Kepler’s two-run home run
The 6-foot-9 Ober, making his third start of the season, lasted seven innings, allowing just singles to Jose Ramirez and Oscar Gonzalez and a double by Josh Naylor.
Ober (2–0) struck out six and walked one, threw 66 of his 91 pitches for strikes, and lowered his ERA to 0.98 in the process.
Battenfield retained the first 17 Twins Christian Vazquez faced hitters before breaking up the 25-year-old rookie’s perfect game bid with two outs in the top of the sixth.
Six pitches later, Max Kepler fired an 87-mph cut fastball off Battenfield and crushed it 440 feet into the right-center field bleachers for a homer, spoiling Battenfield’s shutout.
Battenfield (0-3) was the hard-loser, going seven innings with only those two hits. He struck out seven batters without issuing a walk.
the guardians himself was taken out of a rally in the seventh when Gonzalez cut an infield single to right to Ober, who jumped and threw too late to be out. Ramirez tried to score from second base but was thrown out at the plate by a perfect throw. Twins First baseman Donovan Solano to catcher Vazquez
Right-hander Jorge López led off the eighth for Minnesota with a strikeout.
Minnesota closer Jhon Duran, who led MLB in 2022 with 392 pitches thrown at 100 mph or more, came in ninth. He walked Steven Kwan to start the inning before striking out Amed Rosario, grounding out to Ramírez and striking out Naylor for the seventh save.
Twins And the guardians managed only three hits in each game
– Field Level Media