Twins fall four outs short of combined no-hitter, beat Orioles
Minnesota starter Kyle Gibson threw six innings of no-hit baseball and Miguel Sano homered and drove in two runs as the Twins defeated the Baltimore Orioles 6-2 on Saturday night at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
Gibson (1-0) threw 102 pitches and struck out six in those six innings, but walking five batters drove up his pitch count and forced manager Paul Molitor to remove him before the seventh.
In fact, Gibson came into the game with a 2-2 career record versus Baltimore, plus a 5.89 ERA, but he shut down the Orioles on this night.
Ryan Pressly then came on and retired Baltimore in order in the seventh. He returned in the eighth and got two outs before walking Manny Machado.
Jonathan Schoop then broke up the no-hitter with a single to center.
Gabriel Moya gave up a double to Baltimore pinch hitter Danny Valencia in the ninth before Tim Beckham homered. Still, the Orioles finished with just three hits.
They did draw seven walks, but couldn't do much offensively with them.
On offense, the Twins relied on their power. They got solo homers from Sano, Jason Castro and Max Kepler in the first four innings.
Each of those came off Baltimore starter Andrew Cashner (0-1), making his Orioles debut after they signed him during spring training. Cashner lasted five innings but allowed five runs (four earned) on six hits.
Sano also drove in a run on a groundout. He brought home another run when grounding into a double play but did not get an RBI for that.
Sano started the scoring with a homer in the first off Cashner. Castro homered in the third to make it 2-0, and Sano got his RBI groundout later in that inning.
In the fourth, Kepler homered for a 4-0 lead. Sano's double-play grounder in the fifth stretched the lead to 5-0.
Joe Mauer's RBI single made it 6-0 in the seventh against rookie Nestor Cortes Jr., who was making his major league debut with the Orioles. Pedro Araujo came on in the eighth and made his major league debut also, breezing through a 1-2-3 inning.
--Field Level Media
