Gausman stays in turn as Orioles try to play

MINNEAPOLIS - The tarp stayed on the field last night, a game postponed without a drop of rain falling for hours.

Maybe it's a new trend in baseball, a forecast fad where storms are anticipated and action is taken and off days are lost for no apparent reason.

I sat in my hotel room in Arlington, Tx. on April 9, listening to birds chirp outside my window as the sun broke through the clouds. I should have been covering a game, but it was postponed before I got out of bed.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter wanted to keep Kevin Gausman on normal rest and is sending him to the mound tonight instead of pushing him back to Wednesday. Gausman is coming off eight scoreless innings with no walks against the Yankees. Showalter isn't going to mess with him.

Gausman has pitched every fifth day since coming off the disabled list - April 25 against the Rays, April 30 against the White Sox, May 5 against the Yankees. He's allowed three earned runs and 10 hits in 19 innings.

Gausman is 0-2 with a 6.50 ERA in three career starts against the Twins, allowing 13 earned runs (15 total) in 18 innings. He's walked three and struck out 19. Gausman made one start at Target Field and allowed seven earned runs (eight total) and seven hits in 3 2/3 innings.

Joe Mauer is 5-for-8 with a double and triple against Gausman. He would have led off last night for the first time in his career.

Kurt Suzuki is 3-for-7 and Miguel Sano is 2-for-5 with two home runs.

The Twins still are sending rookie Jose Berrios to the mound tonight for his third major league start.

Pedro Alvarez was going to be the designated hitter last night and Showalter figures to post the same lineup tonight.

Alvarez hit his first home run onto Eutaw St. during Sunday's 11-3 win over the Athletics. It's happened 83 times in the ballpark's history, but Alvarez added a nice touch by hitting the warehouse on one bounce.

The ball traveled an estimated 434 feet, which was news to Alvarez. He seemed to care only that he put another run on the board, that he got all of it and registered a quality at-bat.

I wondered whether Alvarez has gazed at the warehouse and considered how he might become the first player to hit it during a game.

"No," he said. "I mean, guys always joke around trying to do it in BP, but no, that's obviously not something of a focus."

Alvarez's other home run for the Orioles was driven to the opposite field, where he's collected a few other hits.

"The approach is always to hit the ball where it's pitched," Alvarez said. "If it's away, go with it and if it's in, stay inside of it and use your hands to get to it. But obviously your approach is always to stay out in the middle of the field and if it's pitched out there, go with it."

Alvarez has pulled plenty of balls into the shift over the first six weeks of the season. He cleared it by a mile on Sunday.

"It's just more being able to square up the ball hard," said Alvarez, who's 13-for-63 (.206) in 22 games. "Whenever you get to square up the ball and hit it hard, it always has a chance of going through, whether it's on the ground or in the air. That's what my focus is, always try to square up the ball as hard as I can every time. And once it hits the bat, you have zero control what it does and what the defense can do.

"Anytime you can put a good swing on a ball like that, obviously it always feels good."

Down on the farm, Corban Joseph went 0-for-4 with an RBI grounder last night to break his combined 21-game hitting streak at Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk. The first 18 came with the Baysox before his promotion.

Jimmy Paredes, in his first rehab game with Norfolk, singled and scored a run in four at-bats.