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Iwakuma, Mariners blank Twins

Jul 8, 2014 - 6:40 AM Seattle, WA (SportsNetwork.com) - Hisashi Iwakuma continued his historic dominance over the Minnesota Twins on Monday, tossing seven scoreless innings to help the Seattle Mariners to a 2-0 win.

"Threw the ball extremely well ... pretty impressive outing from him," Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said of Iwakuma.

Iwakuma (7-4) was stellar, limiting the Twins to just four hits while striking out a season-high 10 batters. In 33 2/3 career innings against Minnesota, the 33-year-old has yielded just two unearned runs.

"He doesn't really throw the same thing every time, his ball moves all over the place," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "The guy's got great stuff."

Only former Cub Jeff Pico has a longer stretch without giving up an earned run against a single opponent since 1914. He owns the record with 35 innings against Atlanta.

Danny Farquhar and Fernando Rodney both struck out two in perfect innings of relief. Rodney picked up his American League-best 26th save of the season.

Mike Zunino opened the scoring with a solo home run in the bottom of the second inning against Twins starter Kevin Correia (4-11), who surrendered both runs on five hits over seven innings to absorb the tough-luck loss.

Correia matched San Diego's Eric Stults for most losses in the majors with his 11th of the season.

Brian Dozier led off the game with a single for Minnesota and Oswaldo Arcia singled with one out in the second. The only baserunner the Twins managed after that until the seventh inning came when Kendrys Morales reached on an error in the fourth.

Iwakuma faced his only adversity in the seventh, when Arcia doubled to the gap in right-center, one out after Morales' single, putting two runners in scoring position. Chris Colabello then grounded sharply to third, but Kyle Seager looked pinch-runner Chris Parmelee back to the bag and threw to first for the second out. Iwakuma fanned Sam Fuld for his 10th strikeout, ending the threat.

Michael Saunders homered to center with two gone in the home portion of the seventh.

Game Notes

Correia fell to 0-3 in five career starts against the Mariners ... The Twins have lost 11 of 14 games ... Seattle went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position ... Mariners catcher John Buck was designated for assignment after the game ... Seager was named on the All-Star team in place of Toronto's Edwin Encarnacion.