MINNEAPOLIS — — Bailey Ober pitched six solid innings, and the Minnesota Twins stopped a five-game slide by edging the Detroit Tigers 4-3 on Saturday.
Byron Buxton and Austin Martin each had two hits for Minnesota, which scored three runs on sacrifice flies.
Wenceel Pérez, Javier Báez and Kerry Carpenter each drove in a run for Detroit. Matt Vierling had two of the Tigers’ five hits.
Ober (1-1) struck out six and walked one. He retired his first 13 batters, and his streak of shutout innings reached 15 before Pérez’s RBI triple in the sixth.
“We had to work for the win and that feels good. We went out there and did some really positive things and those things started with Bailey on the mound,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said.
The 6-foot-9 right-hander has allowed eight hits and two earned runs in 16 innings over three starts since he was rocked for eight runs in 1 1/3 innings in his first outing on March 31.
“I had a coach in college that used to say you’re only as good as your last outing,” Ober said.
“I have been following that a lot recently, but after you have that first outing, you kind of think about it, like, ‘Oh, you don’t want to be known as that.’ I kind of looked at it a little bit.
And in my head, I’ve been thinking you’re only as good as your next outing.”
Minnesota’s bullpen nearly wasted Ober’s start.
Báez made it 4-2 when he doubled home Vierling in the seventh. But Cole Sands limited the damage by retiring Parker Meadows on a popup to third and striking out pinch-hitter Mark Canha.
Carpenter’s eighth-inning single off Kody Funderburk got the Tigers within one, but Matt Bowman retired Vierling to end the inning.
Griffin Jax tossed a scoreless ninth for his second save. Meadows flew out to the warning track for the final out.
