MINNEAPOLIS – For the Athletics to have any success in the season’s final two months, Jacob Lopez will have to be a big part of the picture.
It’ll help if he turns in more starts as he did against the Twins on Friday.
Lopez threw five scoreless innings, allowing one hit and four walks while striking out four as the Athletics beat the Twins, 2-0, at Target Field.
Neither team had a hit until the fifth inning. Tommy White’s one-out double off Twins starter Zebby Matthews led to Lawrence Butler’s sacrifice fly that scored Donovan Walton with the game’s first run.
Twins left fielder Austin Martin hit a one-out double in the fifth, but Lopez stranded him there by retiring the final two Twins hitters of the inning.
Tyler Soderstrom’s perfectly placed single on a hit-and-run play drove in Henry Bolte and gave the Athletics a 2-0 lead in the sixth.
The Twins tried to rally, but some timely defense in the sixth and eighth innings kept them off the board. Geoff Hartlieb replaced Lopez and walked three of the four batters he faced, but José Suarez got Brooks Lee to hit a chopper right at the third-base bag, and White turned it into an easy 5-3 double play to escape the jam.