Twins beat Phillies 7-2 as Bailey Ober shines after shaky first inning

After a 91-minute rain delay Monday night, Bailey Ober had the Twins in a two-run hole after facing his first three batters.

Ober apparently had the Philadelphia Phillies, the team with the best record in the majors, right where he wanted them. He received an ovation when he walked off the mound in the seventh inning and got a congratulatory handshake after he delivered one of his finest starts of the season in a 7-2 victory at Target Field.

“The way the game started, you’re not sitting there going, ‘This guy’s gonna pitch seven innings for you,’” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But he didn’t just throw seven innings. He threw seven great innings.”

The Twins have been terrible against the top teams in the majors this season — they’re 3-19 against the six big league teams with better records — but Ober carried them to their first win after the All-Star break, ending a three-game losing streak.

Ober retired 17 of his final 18 batters, which included a stretch in which he put down 12 in a row. He didn’t give up a hit after a leadoff single in the second inning.

“The biggest thing when stuff is going right is the mental side,” Ober said. “You’re always locked in. Nothing is really wavering. You’re on the current pitch, and then when that one is over, you’re onto the next one. Nothing else is really going through your mind. You’re just in that kind of flow state.”

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The first inning was the only time Ober didn’t look completely overpowering.

Trea Turner dropped a single in right field, bringing up Bryce Harper for his first at-bat at Target Field in his decorated 13-year career. Harper praised Ober when he saw him during spring training, an exhibition outing in which Ober struck out seven of the 10 batters he faced while reaching 94.8 mph with his fastball. If he’s going to be 95 or 96 [mph], good luck to anybody in the [American League] Central because that’s going to be a tough at-bat,” Harper said when he was interviewed on a TV broadcast.

Ober has never carried that type of velocity into the regular season, throwing only three pitches above 94 mph this year. It was an 86.5-mph cutter on the inside part of the plate that Harper hammered beyond the right-field seats and onto the concourse, Ober attributing the homer to a fastball on the previous pitch in a similar area. The ball left Harper’s bat at a blistering 114 mph.

The Phillies, who average the second-most runs in the National League, didn’t have another runner reach second base.

“That’s where the internal staff, some of the reports we get, are able to pick up on a couple things,” catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “Pete [Maki, pitching coach] sits down, looks at some videos and gave him a little mechanical tweak here and there.”

BOXSCORE: Twins 7, Philadelphia 2

MLB standings

Ober threw the first complete game of his career in Oakland last month, and this was a performance that was almost as impressive. He threw 12 or fewer pitches in each of his final five innings. The Phillies hit only one ball out of the infield in their second time through the lineup.

Ober issued a leadoff walk to Turner in the sixth inning, the Phillies’ only baserunner after the second inning, and he erased it with a double play against Harper.

The Twins, meanwhile, took their first lead in the fifth inning with three consecutive hits against All-Star lefthander Ranger Suárez. Max Kepler, the only lefthanded hitter in the lineup, dropped a single to center, and Diego A. Castillo poked a ball down the right-field line in an 0-2 count that bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double.

Next up was Manuel Margot, a guy the Twins acquired in the offseason to hit lefty pitching. Margot lined a sinker that didn’t sink into right field for a two-run single.

“The way to beat him is kind of how we did,” Jeffers said. “You’ve got to put together a couple of hits. You’re not going to go out there and hit three homers off him.”

Kepler and Castillo, the bottom two hitters in the Twins lineup, combined for three hits, four runs and two walks.