HOUSTON – The Twins couldn’t quite force a Game 5 in their American League Division Series against Houston last October, so we’ll never know if Pablo López would have dominated the Astros once again in the series-deciding game.
But “this is how I hoped it would have went,” López said after pitching seven strong innings Friday.
The righthander gave up just six hits and allowed only one Astros player — Alex Bregman, who hit López’s lone mistake pitch off the left field foul pole — to reach third base as Minnesota won for the eighth time in 10 games, 6-1 inside Minute Maid Park.
López, who provided seven shutout innings here in the Twins’ lone ALDS victory, was a different pitcher than the one who had allowed 16 runs over his last 16 innings. Heck, he even looked different, having cropped his beard down to a goatee.
“He looked like one of those assassins from [TV series] ‘Breaking Bad,’ ” catcher Ryan Jeffers said with admiration.
Pitched like an assassin, too. López’s fastball velocity reached 96 mph, and his sweeper helped him pile up 17 swing-and-misses. He allowed a couple of infield hits but virtually no hard contact, struck out six, walked only one and, other than the first-pitch sweeper that Bregman hit only 96.2 mph and lofted a mere 348 feet to the Crawford Boxes, had little trouble controlling the Astros lineup. He threw just 93 pitches to get through seven innings, his longest start since Opening Day.
“In the bullpen warming up, I told him, ‘That’s the best I’ve seen you since last year.’ He looked really good,” Jeffers said. “He really is an ace. He knows that.”
Astros starter Ronel Blanco, on the other hand, absorbed his first loss of the season and easily his worst start of 2024. Blanco, who no-hit the Blue Jays in April, gave up only three hits, but four runs, in part because he walked three Twins, too.
