ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Byron Buxton hit two home runs including a second-straight leadoff homer, Bailey Ober threw six innings with five strikeouts and two hits, and the Minnesota Twins beat the Texas Rangers 4-0 on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Twins (69-90) outhit the Rangers (80-79) 10-3, with Buxton, Trevor Larnach, Royce Lewis, Edouard Julien and Christian V\u00e1zquez each recording two hits.<\/p>\n
Ober (6-9) tied a season-low in hits allowed and did not allow a run for the first time this year. His last scoreless outing was Sept. 7, 2024, against Kansas City.<\/p>\n
Holding onto a one-run lead in the fifth inning with one on and no outs, the Twins converted on a strikeout double play as Kyle Higashioka went down swinging and Alejandro Osuna was caught stealing second.<\/p>\n
Kody Funderburk threw a hitless seventh with two strikeouts, and Cole Sands struck out one in the ninth.<\/p>\n
Tyler Mahle (6-4) threw five innings with five hits, one run, and four strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Key moment<\/p>\n
After Julien and V\u00e1zquez each reached on singles in the eighth inning, Buxton swung at the first pitch from Chris Martin and\u00a0launched his second homer to center field<\/a>. This one traveled 437 feet, and would be a home run in all 30 Major League ballparks.<\/p>\n Key stat<\/p>\n Buxton’s\u00a010th leadoff home run of the season<\/a>\u00a0followed his leadoff homer in a\u00a04-2 loss<\/a>\u00a0to the Rangers on Wednesday. It’s the second time Buxton has had back-to-back games with a leadoff homer this season, also doing it June 18-19 at Cincinnati.<\/p>\n Up next<\/p>\n Texas: The Rangers visit the Cleveland Guardians, who are one game ahead of Detroit for first in the AL Central. Texas RHP Jack Leiter (9-10, 3.92) faces Cleveland RHP Slade Cecconi (7-6, 4.15).<\/p>\n Minnesota: The Twins head to Philadelphia to face the NL East champion Phillies. Minnesota RHP Joe Ryan (13-9, 3.47) starts opposite Philadelphia RHP Aaron Nola (4-10, 6.46).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Byron Buxton hit two home runs including a second-straight leadoff homer, Bailey Ober threw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[58333,41445,2724,6778,1062,363,91204,6999,99,1022],"class_list":{"0":"post-181677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-app-professional-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-austin","12":"tag-dallas","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-professional-baseball","15":"tag-san-antonio","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}