North Battleford's Andrew Albers made his return to the major leagues for the Minnesota Twins on Thursday night in a 10-2 loss to the Houston Astros.
With the Twins short a player, Albers was called up to the team as the 26th man and came in to pitch in the fourth inning after starter Tommy Milone left the game in the third inning due to shoulder soreness.
After a rocky start where he gave up a two-run home run to George Springer in the fourth and allowed two more runs to score in the fifth frame, Albers settled in and pitched six solid innings with five strikeouts.
"I'm grateful that Albers was here," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "What he did, you can't underscore enough. He came out, he got banged around a bit in the first couple of innings, but he ended up throwing 108 pitches. He picked us up.
"We kept checking in with him. Even after eighth inning, I was tempted to get (reliever Ryan) Pressly in the there, which I really didn't want to do. But (Albers) said he was good. He said he was just starting to get loose."
The 30-year-old has playing for the Twins' AAA affaliate Rochester Red Wings this season. He has a 9-5 record with a 3.51 earned run average in 19 starts.
His last MLB game was on May 1, 2015 when he made a relief appearence for the Toronto Blue Jays in a 9-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians.
