MINNEAPOLIS _ The Twins' April interlude closed Sunday with one final feel-good encounter with the Orioles, one more chance to simulate major league competition without ever risking their spot atop the AL Central. The Twins beat Baltimore for the 12th consecutive time, hit another couple of home runs and prepared to face a depressingly Oriole-free future with a 4-1 victory at Target Field.
Reality returns tomorrow: The Astros arrive in Minnesota, just ahead of the Twins' annual trek to Yankee Stadium.
Max Kepler smacked Dylan Bundy's first pitch of the afternoon into the right-field seats, Byron Buxton led off the third inning with a mirror-image shot to left, and the Twins broke their record for home runs against the Orioles in a single season. Buxton's was the 23rd in just six games against Baltimore this year, surpassing the 22 they hit _ in 18 games _ in both 1962 and 1964.
But nobody may have been more sorry to see the Orioles walk out of his life for another year than Kyle Gibson, who treats these birds like pigeons. The veteran right-hander limited Baltimore to three hits over seven innings, and didn't allow a run until Chris Davis' seventh-inning cannon-shot _ more ironic than damaging, considering Davis' ugly season _ landed close to where Kepler's had.
Gibson has faced Baltimore four times during the past two seasons and has a sparkling 4-0 record and 2.08 ERA in those games, allowing just 12 hits over 26 innings.
But the Orioles, seemingly headed to a second straight 100-loss season, produce those sort of stats for everybody these days. The Twins out-homered them 23-7 this year, outscored them 45-19, and steered their own season in a positive direction with a series of games that were rarely close. If not for an errant Fernando Rodney pitch in extra innings on Opening Day last year, the Twins would have swept Baltimore in consecutive seasons.
Besides the pair of homers, the Twins got two more runs off Bundy, and arguably from Bundy. The Orioles right-hander allowed a double to Kepler and walked Eddie Rosario and C.J. Cron to load the bases in the third. Marwin Gonzalez followed with a sky-high pop-up _ but it landed between outfielders in shallow center, driving home two more.
