Pineda looks good again as Twins beat Rangers

AMERICAN LEAGUE TWINS 7, RANGERS 4

MINNEAPOLIS — Michael Pineda struck out a season-high 9 over 6 efficient innings, Jason Castro had 2 hits and 3 RBI, and the Minnesota Twins beat the Texas Rangers 7-4 on Saturday.

Pineda (6-4) gave up five hits and a run on a solo home run in the sixth inning by Elvis Andrus. The big right-hander had his most strikeouts since 2017 with the New York Yankees prior to Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for all of 2018.

“He missed a significant amount of time, but he’s been able to come back and find himself and … do it in different ways,” Minnesota Manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s not the exact same pitcher that he was five years ago. He’s a different pitcher. But he’s an equally as good pitcher.”

Marwin Gonzalez homered for Minnesota, which leads the majors with 166 home runs this year and matched its total from last season. Gonzalez is the 10th Twins player to reach double digits in home runs, one shy of a club record set in 2016.

Taylor Rogers picked up his 12th save with 21/3 scoreless innings and 5 strikeouts.

Jesse Chavez (3-4) surrendered 5 runs — 4 earned — on 5 hits and 2 walks over 5 innings for Texas.

“I think that something that we were doing, especially in June, was setting the tone of the game early,” Andrus said. “Scoring a lot of runs early. Right now, it’s not happening. I think we need to get back on that.”

Minnesota signed Pineda to a two-year contract in free agency last year, knowing the first year of the deal would mostly be spent in rehab. He was pitching in rehab games last season before being shut down with a knee injury.

Coming back this season, the 30-year-old struggled to a 6.21 ERA in six starts through the end of April but started to show steady progress. He’s allowed 1 run in 4 of his last 5 starts with a 2.83 ERA over that span.

“After you have surgery, it’s a long time for the recovery, so you have to work so hard to be a hundred percent and try to help your team,” Pineda said.