Twins eliminated from playoff contention with 7-2 loss to Orioles

Imagine the excitement in the Twins’ draft room three years ago if the scouts had known the lefthander they took in the third round would someday stand on the Target Field mound and pitch his team to a victory that locked in their playoff seeding. Cade Povich actually accomplished that Friday. Now imagine those scouts if you told them that Povich’s brilliant two-hits-in-52⁄3-innings performance would come against the Twins, and in fact would eliminate the team that drafted him and paid him a $500,000 signing bonus from playoff contention.

Baseball can be a cruel game. Mathematical elimination finally arrived for the Twins, in Friday’s 7-0 shutout at the hands of the former Twins prospect the instrument of their demise. Povich, dealt to the Orioles at the 2022 trade deadline so the Twins could acquire long-gone reliever Jórge López, outpitched Twins veteran Pablo López, and Baltimore’s bullpen put the finishing touches on the Twins’ late-season collapse.

The Twins needed to sweep the Orioles while hoping the Tigers or Royals would get swept this weekend. Detroit beat the White Sox but the Royals’ loss at Atlanta kept Twins’ hopes alive. But it merely delayed Kansas City’s champagne celebration.

Pablo López, whom the Twins originally envisioned starting Game 1 of a playoff series next week, instead finished his season by pitching a Twins’ loss for the third straight start. López wasn’t quite as ineffective as in the Twins’ 8-1 loss in Boston last Sunday, but he had trouble finding the strike zone, walking three batters in 5 2/3 innings. The righthander surrendered a towering two-run home run to Ryan O’Hearn in the second inning, but otherwise pitched out of trouble despite allowing seven hits.

Caleb Thielbar later served up rookie Colton Cowser’s 24th homer of the season, a solo shot into the right-field seats. And Kody Funderburk, in his first appearance since the All-Star break, was torched for four runs on five hits in the eighth inning, allowing many of the announced 26,058 in attendance to boo, then depart..