OAKLAND, Calif. — Bailey Ober struck out 10 in a four-hitter for his first career complete game and the Minnesota Twins used a seven-run second inning to rout the Oakland Athletics 10-2 on Saturday.
Ober (7-4) needed just 89 pitches to finish while tying a career high in strikeouts and walking none in the 13th complete game in the majors this season.
It was the fewest pitches in a complete game by a Twins pitcher since Carlos Silva in 2005. It was also just Minnesota's fifth complete game of fewer than 90 pitches since pitch counts started getting tracked in 1988.
Ober allowed two runs on solo homers by JJ Bleday and Tyler Soderstrom in the first two innings. The 28-year-old threw just 19 balls, his performance eliciting a Greg Maddux-like comparison from A's manager Mark Kotsay and praise from his skipper Rocco Baldelli.
Baldelli said he looked up in the eighth inning and saw Ober had thrown under 20 balls.
''I don't know if I've ever seen that in my life, and I've seen some exceptional pitching performances," Baldelli said. ''It was just nothing but effectiveness everywhere you looked.''
Ober got A's batters to swing early in the count, and his offspeed pitches were effective. Ober also faced the A's in Minnesota last week, allowing a run in 6 1/3 innings in a win, and noticed their aggressiveness — which he took advantage of Saturday.
He noted a complete game as a ''personal goal,'' and it was his first since pitching at the College of Charleston.