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Kyle Gibson pitched seven strong innings and Josmil Pinto and Brian Dozier homered to help lead the Twins to a 5-4 victory over Seattle, Friday night.
The win moves the Twins back to .500 on the season.
The #MNTwins improved to 20-20 on the year. It's the latest the've been .500 or better since finishing the 2010 season at 94-68.
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) May 17, 2014
Minnesota pounded out 12 hits, including six doubles to go with the home runs from Pinto and Dozier.
Dozier, Pinto, Aaron Hicks and Eduardo Escobar all had two hits. The only Twins starter without a hit was Chris Parmelee.
After six innings, the Twins had built a 5-1 lead, but Seattle made it interesting in the eighth when they put up three runs off of Twins reliever Caleb Thielbar.
After Thielbar faltered in the eighth, Casey Fien came on to record the final two outs and the Twins escaped with a one-run lead.
Glenn Perkins came on to pick up his 11th save of the season.
Gibson improved to 4-3 with the win. Seattle starter Chris Young was tagged with the loss.
The two teams will play in the second game of their three-game series Saturday night at 6:10. Samuel Deduno (0-2) starts for the Twins against left hander Roenis Elias (3-2).
– Josh Willingham and Mike Pelfrey began their rehab assignments at Class Triple A Rochester. Willingham was 0-4 with a strike out.
Pelfrey threw five innings and gave up one run and five hits. Pelfrey is likely to need at least one more start before he rejoins the team.
