MINNEAPOLIS -- It’s tough to believe that when the games mattered most, the Los Angeles Dodgers would push Kenta Maeda out of the starting rotation.

Forget about waiting around the bullpen. This postseason, Maeda has built a strong case to be the first man on the mound in Game 1 for Minnesota.

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The Twins didn’t necessarily know that they were getting ace-caliber pitching when they acquired Maeda from the Dodgers in an offseason trade, but that’s all he has given them as the most consistent member of the starting rotation in 2020. Consistent -- with elite upside. That upside has never seemed higher than on Friday, when Maeda outdueled Shane Bieber, the overwhelming American League Cy Young Award favorite, with seven shutout innings that led the Twins to a 3-1 win over Cleveland.

“On a night where we knew we were facing maybe one of the best pitchers in the world, we sent one of the best pitchers out there to face him,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Our guy won the battle and basically outpitched him. No matter who he was facing, Kenta was going to outpitch him tonight."

The win kept Minnesota a game behind the White Sox in the AL Central. Cleveland fell to 2 1/2 games out of first place.

Francisco Lindor crushed a ball to the center-field warning track at 105.8 mph to lead off the game. That was the best Cleveland would manage off Maeda.

Maeda provided far more than your run-of-the-mill seven shutout frames. No Cleveland hitter reached second base on his watch. All four of the hits that he allowed were singles. He walked a pair in the fifth and seventh innings, but the latter was immediately erased on a double play as he completed his outing without issue, even against a Cleveland lineup loaded with left-handed and switch-hitters -- which had previously been seen as an area for improvement.

"Facing left-handed hitters has always been a topic of mine since coming over to the big leagues, but since joining the Twins, I think I've been pretty successful,” Maeda said. “One of the reasons is the changeup. I worked on it a little bit to get left-handed hitters out, and I think that's part of the success.”

Part of Maeda’s ability to keep men out of scoring position came with his defense and command of the running game, as seen in his replay-reviewed sixth-inning pickoff of Lindor at first base on his fifth pickoff attempt of the plate appearance -- and his third in a row. He had earlier flashed the leather, too, with a glove flip to first on a grounder hit by Tyler Naquin.

It hasn’t just been one dominant start against this lineup; Maeda has now done this to the Twins’ division rival three times. Following Friday’s outing, he has allowed one earned run to Cleveland in 18 innings this season, with 20 strikeouts across the three starts. He has claimed victory in all three.

“When we acquired Kenta, we thought in a lot of ways -- objectively and simply just watching him, subjectively too -- that he was one of the best pitchers in baseball,” Baldelli said. “We thought he had the stuff and the different weapons.”

As for the other ace on the mound on Friday night, the Twins got to him. Minnesota’s offense came on a pair of homers: a two-run blast by Byron Buxton and a solo shot from Ryan Jeffers. They marked the first long balls off Bieber since Aug. 9.

Buxton’s second-inning homer left the bat at 111.5 mph, the hardest-hit ball off Bieber in 2020, per Statcast. Jeffers followed that up by clobbering his second career homer into the upper deck in the seventh, a towering blast with an exit velocity of 112.9 mph that traveled an estimated 436 feet.

“As a team, we tried to go out there and be aggressive from pitch one, because you really have to attack him, because he’s not going to leave a ton of pitches right in the middle of the strike zone,” Jeffers said. “I think we did a really good job of that up and down the lineup today.”

Maeda entered the game as the Majors’ leader in WHIP (0.74). His outing lowered his ERA to 2.43 and gave him 63 strikeouts and 10 walks in 2020. Twins starters have pitched into the seventh inning five times this season. Maeda has accounted for four of them -- including Friday night. Effectiveness? Check. Longevity? Check.

“I'm trying to fulfill the expectations that the team has for me,” Maeda said. “I think I've been doing that pretty well."