MINNEAPOLIS _ Orioles right-hander Alex Cobb must've thought things couldn't get any worse after the Twins tucked and rolled him a week ago in Baltimore. Alas, he was back on the mound Friday, facing them again. This time at Target Field.
And the Twins weren't done with him, swatting three long home runs off him in the first inning on the way to another easy victory, this time 6-1.
The Twins have made it be known that they are made to mash this season, and their destruction of everything Cobb flipped up to the plate on Friday was just the latest example of what they can do to pitchers who are not up to the challenge. Max Kepler added a home run off Cobb in the fourth, making it the first time Cobb had allowed four homers in any of his 146 starts.
And the Twins continued their long-ball exhibition against Baltimore. In four games this season, the Twins have hit a whopping 16 home runs off Orioles pitchers while outscoring them 32-6.
It was just before the game that manager Rocco Baldelli was asked if his starter, lefthander Martin Perez, needed to make any adjustments after facing Baltimore just a week ago. His answer sounded like was right out of the manager's quotebook.
"As far as approach," Baldelli said, "the approach we take and the way we would attack some of the hitters may be the same or, with some of them, may be different."
The Twins approach against Cobb looked like it was to repeat everything they did to him a week ago.
With two outs in the first inning, Nelson Cruz got a juicy curveball and lofted it over the center-field fence for the first run of the game. Eddie Rosario, on the next pitch, drove another hanging knuckle curve over the same center field fence to make it 2-0.
Then C.J. Cron turned on a 1-2 pitch, hammering it into the seats in left. Just like that, the Twins led 3-0 on 1,252 feet of home runs. Cron's traveled the farthest, at 430 feet.
It was the Twins' first back-to-back-to-back home runs since June 26, 2016, when Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe and Max Kepler achieved it at Yankee Stadium.
In 6 2/3 innings over two outings this month, the embattled Cobb has given up seven home runs to the Twins.
Cruz also homered off reliever Gabriel Ynoa in the fifth to increase the Twins lead to 6-1. It also was the 29th multi-homer game of Cruz's career.
Twins left-hander Martin Perez retired the first nine batters he faced but needed 21 pitches to get out of the fourth. He kept the game scoreless until the sixth when Dwight Smith, Jr. drove in a run with a single. In six innings, Perez held the Orioles to one run on six hits with no walks and four strikeouts. He improved to 3-0 with a 4.44 ERA.
Matt Magill called up on Friday, made is season debut a rocky one as he gave up a single then walked the bases loaded in the eighth inning. Baldelli had to go to the bullpen for Trevor May, who got Hanser Alberto to ground into a force play to end the inning.
In four innings, Cobb gave up four earned runs on six hits and a walk with two strikeouts. But his ERA actually decreased _ from 11.88 to 10.95.
That's how his season has been going, especially against the Twins.
