“Orioles clinch first AL wild card spot, ending Twins' playoff hopes.”

MINNEAPOLIS – Cade Povich pitched shutout ball in the sixth, Ryan O'Hearn and Colton Cowser hit home runs and the Baltimore Orioles eliminated the Minnesota Twins from the postseason with a 7-2 victory on Friday night.

The Orioles have secured the first wild-card spot in the American League and will host either Detroit or Kansas City in the opening round next week.

“Getting to home field with the wild card is huge,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “We will be thrilled to play in front of our fans. There will be a lot of energy and excitement in the ballpark.”

By the fifth inning, the Twins knew the Tigers had won and the Royals had lost, meaning a win would keep their playoff hopes alive. But they managed just two hits in the first eight innings and trailed 7-0.

At their season high point on August 17, the Twins were 70-53 and had a five-game lead in the wild-card race. Since then they have been 12-25 years old.

“It was clearly more than a disappointing end to a series and we had a promising season,” said Twins coach Rocco Baldelli, whose team was the defending AL Central champion.

Povich (3-9) gave up just two hits and walked one while striking out two in 5⅔ innings. The rookie left-hander made his first career start against the team that selected him in the third round of the 2021 draft. The Twins traded him to Baltimore a year later as the centerpiece of a package that would bring in backup Jorge Lopez.

“I just treat every start like it's kind of a tryout for the postseason,” said Povich, who went 2-2 with a 2.60 ERA in five starts in September.

Twins starter Pablo López (15-10) gave up two runs, six hits, three walks and had eight strikeouts in 5⅔ innings.

“It’s tough,” López said of the Twins’ collapse. “We were at full speed for so long. Everything went well. It was fun. It clicked. And then nothing clicked anymore.”

O'Hearn opened the scoring for the Orioles with a two-run home run deep in the second inning.

The Orioles loaded the bases with one out in the fifth. But López beat Ramón Urías on his career-high 111th throw of the night. Then reliever Caleb Thielbar sent Gunnar Henderson out of the game with a grounder, leaving the score 2-0.

Cowser tagged Thielbar's pitch for his 24th home run of the season in the seventh game. Baltimore scored four more runs in the eighth with five singles off reliever Kody Funderburk.

The Twins broke the shutout in the ninth on Carlos Santana's two-run single.

Now the Twins look back on an offseason in which they try to figure out what went wrong and how they can avoid a repeat in the future.

“You don’t react emotionally in these moments. You really have to look at the bigger picture,” Baldelli said. “Look at how the season went overall. We will also look at the last six weeks because that is what many of us are feeling right now.”