Fastball

Minnesota Twins Pitcher Makes Insane History Not Seen in Nearly 30 Years

The Minnesota Twins beat the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night as starting pitcher Pablo Lopez put up an extremely rare stat line.

Brady Farkas

Minnesota Twins pitcher Pablo Lopez (49) throws a pitch against the Tampa Bay Rays in the first inning at Tropicana Field on Sept 5.
Minnesota Twins pitcher Pablo Lopez (49) throws a pitch against the Tampa Bay Rays in the first inning at Tropicana Field on Sept 5. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
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The Minnesota Twins earned a crucial victory on Tuesday night, beating the Los Angeles 10-5 at Target Field.

With the win, Minnesota is now 77-68 on the season. They remain in the third and final wild card spot in the American League, 3.0 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers and 4.0 ahead of both the Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners.

In the win, the Twins had 10 hits, with Matt Wallner, Kyle Farmer and Carlos Santana each connecting for home runs.

Pablo Lopez earned the win on the mound, tossing 7.0 innings and striking out 10. He's now 15-8 with a 3.88 ERA. He also happened to make some extremely rare history with his wild stat line, which included him giving up four unearned runs.

Per @JayHayKid of the "Baseball is Dead" podcast on social media:

Utterly meaningless stat of the day:

Pablo López is the first pitcher since Shane Reynolds on July 6, 1995 to have a start with 10+ K and 0 *earned* runs but at least 4 runs allowed.

The 28-year-old Lopez is the leader of the Twins staff, especially in the absence of Sonny Gray, who left in free agency last offseason. Lifetime, he's 54-47 with a 3.86 ERA. He's in his seventh big-league season with the Miami Marlins and Twins, making the All-Star Game in 2023.

The Twins and Angels will play again on Wednesday night with first pitch set for 7:10 p.m. ET. Rookie Zebby Matthews will pitch for Minnesota. He's 1-3 with a 7.36 ERA on the year.

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Brady Farkas

BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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