Clarke Schmidt did not allow a run over a career-high eight innings and the New York Yankees scored three times in the first inning to completed a three-game sweep of the host Minnesota Twins with a 5-0 victory Thursday afternoon at Minneapolis.
The Yankees became the first team in the American League to reach 30 wins while coming out on top their fourth straight game. New York also won for the 10th time in 12 games and completed its first sweep at Minnesota since 2013.
After pitching 6 2/3 scoreless innings Friday at Tampa Bay, Schmidt (5-1) allowed three hits by giving up singles to Carlos Santana and Willi Castro along with a double to Carlos Correa. In his past two starts, the right-hander has allowed eight hits in 14 2/3 scoreless innings.
Schmidt struck out eight and did not walk a batter for the fourth time this season. He threw 69 of his career-high 103 pitches for strikes and faced six above the minimum en route to his third straight victory.
Schmidt finished off his brilliant outing by retiring Correa on a fly ball after Trevor Larnach reached on a fielding error by third baseman Jon Berti.
The Yankees gave Schmidt the lead before he took the mound.
Anthony Volpe opened the game with a homer to left off Joe Ryan (2-3) on the game’s fifth pitch. Gleyber Torres added an RBI double that caromed off left fielder Alex Kirilloff’s glove and Anthony Rizzo capped the inning with a run-scoring groundout.
Austin Wells contributed an RBI single in the sixth and Alex Verdugo lifted a sacrifice fly in the seventh after Aaron Judge hit his second double of the game.
Victor Gonzalez pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to finish off New York’s fifth shutout of the season.
Ryan allowed four runs on six hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out five and walked one before getting lifted after 93 pitches.
The Twins went scoreless in the series after Ryan Jeffers hit a homer in the first inning on Tuesday. Minnesota was blanked for the second time in two days and the third time this season.
The Twins were held to three hits or less for the fourth time and mustered 14 hits in the series after winning 17 of its previous 20 contests.