CHICAGO — It’s early, but David Festa appears to be getting the hang of this.

After two rough starts to begin his major league career, the Twins’ rookie has steadily improved over his past two, and on Monday pitched five scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs in a 3-0 victory in front of 35,382 fans at Wrigley Field.

Twins have won five in a row, are 15 games over .500 for the first time this season and pulled within 3½ games of first-place Cleveland in the American League Central Division.

Festa (2-2) allowed the Cubs only two hits and a walk, and struck out a career-high nine batters in his fifth major league start. Caleb Thielbar, Jorge Alcala, Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax combined to throw four scoreless innings. It was the Twins’ second shutout victory in their last eight games, having won 5-0 at Detroit on July 28.

Jax pitched the ninth for his eighth save this season. In all, the Cubs struck out 14 times.

Manny Margot was 2 for 4 with a home run, and Royce Lewis plated the game’s first run with a sacrifice fly to Willi Castro in the third inning.

Minnesota might have done more damage against Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks, but after Lewis’ sac fly for the second out, Trevor Larnach — who had singled to center field — watched Matt Wallner’s long drive to right-center fall between Pete Crow-Armstrong and Ian Happ instead of running.

As he approached third, coach Tommy Watkins aggressively waved the outfielder home, but Larnach was caught easily, 8-6-2, for the final out.

Hendricks (3-10) was charged with two runs on five hits and a walk in six innings.