Mussina Is His Masterly Self in Win : Baseball: Baltimore right-hander pitches a two-hitter, facing only 32 batters in a 3-0 victory over Minnesota.

There were the customary quips in the Baltimore Orioles’ postgame clubhouse about Mike Mussina perhaps needing to find a higher league in which to pitch. There were the obligatory raves coming from down the hall in the Minnesota Twins’ locker room.

There was Oriole Manager Johnny Oates shrugging his shoulders and conceding that, all of 50 games into Mussina’s major league career, he’s exhausted all of the superlatives in praising his prodigious right-hander.

For Mussina, pitching excellence has become the frighteningly mundane norm at the age of 24. Wednesday, brought, ho-hum, a tidy two-hitter as he shut down the Twins and led the Orioles to a 3-0 victory before a weekday afternoon crowd of 19,583 at the Metrodome.

“After a while, you run out of words to describe the kid,” Oates said after Mussina issued two walks and recorded five strikeouts en route to becoming the first Oriole since Jim Palmer in August and September 1982 to craft shutouts in back-to-back starts.

” ... He showed you just about everything you’d want to see in a pitcher out there today -- control, an idea of what he wanted to do, the ability to make big pitches when he had to. He did pretty much whatever he wanted out there today.”

In fact, Mussina came this close to pitching a no-hitter. Each of Minnesota’s two hits came within a foot or so of being caught. Mike Pagliarulo’s third-inning double was a fly ball over the head of Damon Buford. The rookie center fielder got a late break, then barely missed the ball with a headlong dive before it bounced over the fence. And in the sixth, left fielder Brady Anderson just missed snagging Chuck Knoblauch’s looping fly ball to short left-center that became a single.

Otherwise, the Twins -- who had their three-game winning streak ended to fall to 11-15 -- did precious little offensively. Mussina (4-1) faced only 32 batters, five above the minimum. He walked Kent Hrbek with two outs in the fourth and Kirby Puckett with one out in the ninth.

Only one Minnesota runner got to third base, that in the sixth, when, after Knoblauch’s hit, Shane Mack’s line drive somehow got past first baseman Glenn Davis and into the right-field corner for a two-base error that created a second-and-third, one-out predicament.

But Mussina rose to the occasion, striking out Puckett with a high fastball and retiring Hrbek on a ground ball to Davis. The Twins got only two other runners as far as second base -- Pagliarulo in the third and Puckett in the ninth.

“I’m pitching pretty well,” said Mussina, who shut out the Twins for the second time in six days, lowered his earned-run average to 2.55 and won his fourth start in a row. “Maybe I’ve caught these guys when they’re not playing very well. ... “

The Orioles (10-15) won for the fifth time in seven games and ended their season-opening stretch of 25 games against American League West opponents.

Wednesday, Mark McLemore had three hits, and Sherman Obando provided two singles, drove in a run and scored another. Minnesota starter Willie Banks allowed three runs (one earned) on five hits and four walks over 3 1/3 innings to fall to 2-2.

Singles by Obando and Buford -- his first big league hit -- and Anderson’s RBI double put the Orioles in front in the third.

The Twins helped out in the fourth. Chris Hoiles drew a leadoff walk from Banks. Leo Gomez followed with a grounder that promptly became a fiasco when shortstop Jeff Reboulet’s throw sailed high over second baseman Knoblauch’s head and all the way to the right-field bullpen.

Hoiles scored from first base on the play and Gomez went to third. Gomez trotted home on Obando’s single through the middle to make it a 3-0 game, and Mussina took it from there.

The Twins were rightfully impressed. “He’s got command of more than one or two pitches, and you’re always off balance,” Pagliarulo said.

Mussina is now 26-11 with a 2.62 ERA in his 50 starts in the majors.

“He throws everything for strikes,” Puckett said. “And that’s the key to pitching -- get ahead and change speeds. If you do that, you’re going to be tough. Once he gets ahead, you’re pretty much at his disposal. ... He pitched ahead in the count all day.”