Ervin Santana struck out seven in six shutout innings and Brian Dozier hit two of Minnesota’s six home runs to lead the Twins to a 9-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday night.
Santana (5-0) lowered his ERA to 0.66 for the season and has allowed one run or fewer and gone at least six innings in all six of his starts. Fernando Valenzuela is the only pitcher to do it more when he went seven straight to start the 1981 season.
Miguel Sano, Jason Castro, Byron Buxton and Joe Mauer also went deep for the Twins, who have won three in a row and five of their last six.
Sonny Gray (0-1) made his season debut for the Athletics, giving up four runs on five hits and striking out four in six innings. Yonder Alonso homered for the A’s, who struck out 11 times, the seventh time in the last eight games they have reached double-digit whiffs.
