Pablo Lopez pitches 7 2/3 shutout innings to lead Twins over Blue Jays

Lopez continued his stellar month of August in the series-opening victory.

Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Pablo Lopez (49) throws to the Toronto Blue Jays in the second inning at Target Field in Minneapolis on Aug. 30, 2024. / Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

After being swept by the Atlanta Braves in a series that proved taxing on the bullpen, the Twins came into Friday’s series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays in need of a strong and deep start from Pablo Lopez to get them back on track and save some arms. That's exactly what Lopez provided.

In a pitching rematch of Game 1 of last year’s American League wild-card series, Lopez once again outdueled Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman, tossing 7 2/3 shutout innings in a 2-0 Twins victory Friday night in front of an announced crowd of 24,623 at Target Field in Minneapolis. 

"I was highly motivated," Lopez said. "Every game has its challenges, every game has its reasons to find that competitive edge, that competitive fire, and we new the last couple games, the last five games we played, it wasn't really our game, our baseball.

"And it's a long season, it's hard to not go through those moments. You definitely don't want to go through those late in the second half, making the push that we're making. But I just use that to be more focused, be more within, making sure every pitch had a purpose."

The win snaps a four-game losing streak for the Twins (73-61) and keeps them within 3.5 games of the division-leading Cleveland Guardians, who beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 10-8 Friday night.

It's also Lopez third straight shutout appearance. Lopez has now pitched 20 2/3 straight scoreless innings, a career-best stretch. Lopez has a 1.71 earned-run average across five starts in August.

Lopez sent the first 12 Blue Jays batters down in order, not allowing his first hits until the fifth inning when Spencer Horwitz and Addison Barger led off with back-to-back singles for Toronto (66-71). But Lopez sent Alejandro Kirk, Ernie Clement and Nathan Lukes down in order to keep it a scoreless draw.

Then the Twins finally got to Gausman in the bottom of the fifth inning. Jose Miranda led off with a double, and Carlos Santana brought him home with an RBI single the next at-bat. Ryan Jeffers then drew a walk, and Austin Martin advanced Santana to third and Jeffers to second with a sacrifice bunt.

Willi Castro’s sacrifice fly the next at-bat brought home Santana to give the Twins a 2-0 advantage.

"To give (Lopez), even if it were just one more run, which it ended up being, I'm not going to say I or anyone knew that it would be enough, but it would certainly give everyone a little more confidence in everything that they do," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "And especially our pitcher, giving him any sort of breathing room given the way that he was throwing the ball seemed like a good thing."

Gausman only gave up the two runs on four hits while fanning four in 5 2/3 innings in the loss.

Lopez pitched a shutout seventh inning and got the first two outs of the eighth before giving up back-to-back singles to Lukes and Leo Jimenez, which brought an end to another stellar start. Lopez gave up six hits in the 7 2/3-inning shutout while fanning three to improve to 13-9 on the year with the win.

Griffin Jax struck out Daulton Varsho for the final out of the eighth inning, and Jhoan Duran pitched a scoreless ninth inning to pick up his 19th save of the season.

The Twins and Blue Jays meet for the second of their three-game series at 6:10 p.m. on Saturday.