ST. LOUIS _ Fernando Romero might not be much of a hitter. But he's a pretty good streak stopper, and that's a lot more important to the Twins.
Romero, who in his major-league debut last week halted the Twins' three-game skid, stopped an even longer streak Monday: The Cardinals' five-game run of winning. The rookie pitched six innings against the red-hot home team, struck out nine and never gave up a run, delivering a fourth consecutive Twins victory, 6-0 over the NL Central leaders at Busch Stadium.
Romero's ERA remains at 0.00 as a major leaguer, and this time, he didn't even let a runner reach third base. He was far from perfect, allowing a Cardinals batter to reach base in all six innings, three via walks and one who was hit by a pitch. Three times, the leadoff hitters reached base. Yet Romero, whose fastball routinely registered 97 miles per hour, constantly limited the danger by whiffing critical hitters _ five of them looking at strike three.
By the time he was told he was done, Romero had extended his scoreless streak to 112/3 innings _ the second-longest string of zeroes to open a career in Twins history. Only left-hander Andrew Albers, who racked up 172/3 scoreless innings in his first two starts in 2013, ever began a career with less turbulence.
As new as he is to pitching in the big leagues, Romero is an even bigger novice at wielding a bat, having never come to the plate at any level of professional baseball. But the 23-year-old attacked the challenge with gusto, swinging at seven of the 11 pitches he saw from Cardinals starter John Gant and reliever Matt Bowman. He managed to foul three of them off, but never quite put a ball in play, walking away with three strikeouts.
Romero's spot in the batting order was just about the only one that wasn't productive, making his task on the mound that much easier. The Twins, who have scored at least four runs in all seven games in May, handed the rookie a lead before he even took the mound. Joe Mauer walked to lead off the game, moved up on Gant's wild pitch, and scored on a double by Max Kepler. Two batters later, Eddie Rosario, who is batting over .450 since the calendar turned to May, doubled off the right field wall, scoring Kepler.
The Twins strung together a couple of singles and a sacrifice fly by catcher Bobby Wilson in the fourth inning to produce another run, and then knocked Gant from the game in the sixth on a run-scoring double by Robbie Grossman. The outfielder had been hitless in 15 at-bats in May until collecting three hits Monday, and he was in the middle of the Twins' two-run add-on in the eighth inning, too.
Rosario led off the eighth with his second double of the night _ he has had an extra-base hit in all five games of this road trip, a total of seven overall _ and scored on Grossman's single. When Wilson followed with a double down the left-field line, Grossman scored, too.
