Twins beat Phillies 7-2 as Bailey Ober shines after shaky start

After a 91-minute rain delay Monday, Bailey Ober had the Twins in a two-run hole after facing his first three batters.

Ober apparently had the Philadelphia Phillies, the team with the best record in the majors, right where he wanted them. He received an ovation when he walked off the mound in the seventh inning and he received a congratulatory handshake after he delivered one of his finest starts of the season in a 7-2 victory at Target Field.

The Twins have been terrible against the top teams in the league this season — they're 3-19 against the six MLB teams with better records — but Ober carried them to their first win following the All-Star break.

Ober retired 17 of his last 18 batters, which included a stretch where he put down 12 in a row. He didn't give up a hit after a leadoff single in the second inning.

It was pure domination after a shaky first inning.

Trea Turner dropped a single in right field, bringing up Bryce Harper for his first at-bat at Target Field in his decorated 13-year career. Harper praised Ober when he saw him during spring training, an exhibition outing where Ober struck out seven of the 10 batters he faced while reaching 94.8 mph with his fastball. "If he's going to be 95 or 96 [mph], good luck to anybody in the Central because that's going to be a tough at-bat," said Harper when he was interviewed on a TV broadcast.

Ober has never carried that type of velocity into the regular season, throwing only three pitches above 94 mph this year. It was an 86.5-mph cutter on the inside part of the plate that Harper hammered beyond the right-field seats and onto the concourse. The ball left Harper's bat at a blistering 114 mph.

The Phillies, who average the second-most runs in the National League, didn't have another runner reach second base.

Ober had a seven-pitch third inning, a 12-pitch fourth inning, a 12-pitch fifth inning and a nine-pitch sixth inning. During his second time through the Phillies lineup, there was only one ball that left the infield.

He threw his first career complete game in Oakland last month, and this was a performance that was almost dominant. He issued a leadoff walk to Turner in the sixth inning, the Phillies' lone baserunner after the second inning, and he erased it by inducing a double play against Harper.

Cole Sands, who replaced Ober with a two-run lead, didn't allow a hit over the final two innings. Philadelphia's four hits were tied for its second-lowest total of the season.

The Twins, meanwhile, took their first lead of the game in the fifth inning with three consecutive hits against All-Star lefthander Ranger Suárez. Max Kepler, the lone lefty in the Twins lineup, dropped a single to center field. Diego A. Castillo poked a ball down the right-field line in a 0-2 count that bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double, putting two runners in scoring position with none out.

Next up was Manuel Margot, a guy the Twins acquired in the offseason to hit lefty pitching. Margot lined a sinker that didn't sink into right field for a two-run single.

It was the same part of the lineup that came through in the third inning. Castillo drew a one-out walk, Margot singled and Willi Castro lined a down-the-middle pitch in a 3-1 count to center for an RBI single. The Twins hit 3-for-26 with runners in scoring position when they were swept by the Milwaukee Brewers over the weekend, but they were a more efficient 2-for-4 in the first five innings.

After the Twins loaded the bases and failed to score in the sixth inning, Carlos Santana bashed a two-out RBI double off the right-field wall in the seventh inning. In the eighth inning, the Twins added three runs through an RBI single from Kepler, a bases-loaded walk by Castro and Edouard Julien scoring on a wild pitch.