MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins finished their series win in Cleveland with a pair of bullpen games because of a rainout and then a spot start by reliever Randy Dobnak on Sunday.

The yeoman’s work from the bullpen allowed José Berríos an extra day of rest, and Berríos returned the favor on Monday.

Berríos posted his second straight strong start and Luis Arraez had three hits and two RBIs as the Twins came back to beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3, on Monday night at Target Field.

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“Every outing, I'm feeling better and better,” Berríos said. “My arm was feeling great today. I was feeling great overall and my pitches were working good for me."

Berríos surrendered a run in each of the first two innings before settling in and finishing 7 1/3 innings with just that pair of runs allowed. He gave up five hits and two walks while striking out eight batters.

Minnesota won for the third time in four games and saw its magic number to clinch the American League Central shrink to eight.

“I think his confidence level, the way he felt, the way he was going about his business, what he was saying when he would come back to the dugout, he just seemed to have an air of confidence about everything that he was doing,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He wanted to keep pitching and normally when a guy's thinking like that at that point in the game, he's feeling good physically and it was a good day."

Arraez paced the offense against Chicago starter Reynaldo López. The rookie second baseman had a single in the sixth inning that spun its way past Chicago third baseman Yoán Moncada to drive in two runs.

Berríos has proven he’s back to his All-Star form after a six-start stretch over which he had an 8.07 ERA. He’s pitched at least seven innings in his past two outings, giving up just two runs in that stretch.

The right-hander now has four of the Twins’ six games this season with more than seven innings pitched.

"The execution has been better,” Baldelli said. “I can't point to one reason why that is. But the stuff is clearly a tick up from maybe what we saw in July or August. He's just looked great. This is exactly what he looked like for much of the year early on. This is the stuff. This is the execution. Even the confidence and the mound presence that he displays, this is who he is. I think he feels it right now."

Leury García singled to start the game for the White Sox and scored on a sacrifice fly by José Abreu. James McCann added a solo homer to start the second inning, but Berríos held Chicago scoreless from there. McCann now has four homers in 24 at-bats in his career against Berríos and is hitting .333.

After McCann’s home run, Berríos only allowed four baserunners until the eighth on just two walks, a hit and an error by Miguel Sanó. No runner reached second base in that span.

“He’s driving down the mound better,” catcher Mitch Garver said. “He’s not as rotational, he’s more linear. That’s what it looks like from my perspective. I don’t know what they’ve been doing in the bullpen, but he looks like he’s driving down towards home plate as opposed to rotating, if that makes any sense.”

Berríos started the eighth and gave up a single to Ryan Goins and retired García before being lifted after 94 pitches. He threw 65 strikes and had 16 swinging strikes, tied for his third-most this season.

Monday was Berríos’ 30th start of the season, the second straight year he’s accomplished the feat. He’s four innings away from the career-high 192 1/3 innings he threw last season, but Baldelli said the team hasn’t made any decisions about giving Berríos more rest down the stretch.

“We believe that the rest, the extra days do matter and do help in a lot of ways,” Baldelli said. “It's a bigger discussion, but we talk about workload. We talk about workload in terms of innings. I think it goes beyond innings. It turns into a discussion of how those innings come about, really. If you throw 200 innings in five months, that's a lot different than throwing 200 innings over the course of 7 months. I think a lot of that matters and has to be taken into consideration.”

In his last two outings, Berríos has proven he’s ready for the stretch run and any possible playoff starts down the line.

“I am where I want to be right now,” Berríos said. “Keep building off that and hopefully do great things moving forward.”