Byron Buxton, Pablo López lead Twins past Mariners

SEATTLE — Over the past week, Byron Buxton has been hitting like an all-star, and Pablo López has been pitching like one.

On Saturday, their combined efforts helped lift the Twins to a 5-1 win over the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, the 5,000th victory in team history. López threw six innings of one-run ball. Buxton drove in four runs, hitting his fourth home run in his past five games.

It’s certainly a welcome sign for both.

López, predicted to be in the Cy Young Award conversation before the year started, has had an up-and-down season but tweaks — he’s been focusing on both mechanics and his approach — have produced the desired results in his past two starts.

“He’s made some real changes and he’s getting the results,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s making the pitches much more often than previously that he wants to make and he feels good about it. You can see it. You can visually see it.”

Though not quite as dominant as his eight-inning, two-hit shutout the last time out, López was stingy against the Mariners (47-38), giving up just four hits in his start.

Mitch Haniger crushed a curveball left over the plate, tying the game up in the third inning at the time, but that was all the Mariners would manage against López, who seemingly got better as the night went on. He finished his day by sending down 12 of the last 13 batters he faced.

“Two back-to-back like this, it just helps me keeping that trust up and eager to keep going out there and keep this momentum going,” López said.

He found much of his offensive support from Buxton, who drove in the go-ahead run with a double in the fourth inning and then hammered a fastball out to left-center field in his next at-bat. Carlos Correa and Jose Miranda scored on the three-run home run, which helped push the game out of reach in the sixth inning.

“The swing … it looks very synched up,” Baldelli said. “It’s very tight and it’s very impactful. He’s finding the barrel and the ball just really takes off when he’s putting good swings on the ball. He’s in the middle of it. He’s feeling it.”

It was Buxton’s fourth home run in his past five games, a binge that started a day after he finished with three strikeouts in Oakland. After the game, he said, he told strength and conditioning coach Aaron Rhodes that he “was about to get hot.”

“And he just looked at me and I was like, ‘Watch,’ ” Buxton said. “It was just kind of one of those things where just believing in yourself and things will come true.”

In those five games, Buxton has 10 hits and has driven 11 runs as he helps lift up the Twins’ (46-37) lineup.

The only run Buxton did not drive in came in the second inning when Miranda, celebrating his 26th birthday, brought home Max Kepler with a soft single.

“There were a lot of good things on both sides of the ball today,” Baldelli said.

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