MINNEAPOLIS — Cleveland’s Shane Bieber tied the major league record for strikeouts in a pitcher’s first two starts of the season, punching out 13 Minnesota Twins over eight innings in the Indians’ 2-0 victory on Thursday night.

Bieber (2-0) fanned 14 over six scoreless innings on Friday against Kansas City. His 27 strikeouts in the two games matched the record set by Karl Spooner of the Brooklyn Dodgers in September 1954 during the first two starts of his short career.

Facing a Twins team that came in with the second-best run differential in baseball, Bieber allowed three singles in his eight innings.

Francisco Lindor supplied all the offense Cleveland needed with a two-run homer in the third inning off Jose Berrios (0-1).

ROYALS 5, TIGERS 3: Trevor Rosenthal pitched a scoreless ninth for his first save since 2017 and Kansas City won at Detroit Tigers, overcoming Miguel Cabrera’s first multihomer game since 2016.

Once a standout closer for St. Louis, Rosenthal has struggled with his health and his effectiveness in recent years, finishing 2019 with a 13.50 ERA in 22 appearances with the Nationals and Tigers. When he retired JaCoby Jones on a grounder to end the game, he gave his glove a little celebratory tap.

Cabrera hit solo homers in the first and eighth, and Jonathan Schoop added one for Detroit in the fourth.

BRAVES 2, RAYS 1: Max Fried retired Tampa Bay’s first 14 batters and combined with three relievers on a four-hitter as Atlanta won at home.

Dansby Swanson had a run-scoring single in Atlanta’s two-run second inning.

Fried (1-0) struck out seven and walked one while allowing one run in 6 2/3 innings.

Luke Jackson, and Shane Greene combined for four outs before Mark Melancon pitched the ninth for his second save.

NATIONALS 6, BLUE JAYS 4: Michael A. Taylor’s second homer of the season helped the Washington knock around struggling Hyun-Jin Ryu and beat home-away-from-home Toronto before both teams head into a coronavirus-caused “mini All-Star break,” as Washington Manager Dave Martinez called it.

Kurt Suzuki delivered a two-run double and Asdrubal Cabrera added an RBI double off Ryu (0-1), who gave up Taylor’s two-run shot to straightaway center that he celebrated with a socially distanced dugout dance in the fourth. Taylor is 2 for 14 this season, a .143 average, but both hits cleared the fences.

Ryu’s ERA is 8.00 after he allowed five runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings, his second start under an $80 million, four-year deal Toronto gave him after he was second in NL Cy Young Award voting for the Dodgers in 2019.

Technically, the Blue Jays were the “home” team for the last two games; they are barred from their Toronto stadium in 2020 and waiting for a Triple-A ballpark in Buffalo to be readied for major league action.

And it appears Washington will be the Blue Jays’ home for a bit longer. That’s because neither they nor the Nationals will play again until Tuesday, a four-day gap that is normally unheard of in baseball, where clubs can go weeks at a time without any respite.

In a season already delayed and cut to 60 games – at least – by the pandemic, odd scheduling is the norm now. Washington was supposed to be at Miami on Friday through Sunday, but the Marlins had more than half-a-roster’s worth of players test positive for the coronavirus and so aren’t allowed to play until next week at the earliest.

The Blue Jays were supposed to be in Philadelphia this weekend, but that series was postponed because the Phillies just hosted the Marlins.

CUBS-REDS: The finale of a four-game series was postponed because of rain.

No makeup date was set.

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