Dallas Keuchel looked over his shoulder in the sixth inning and saw activity in the Minnesota Twins’ bullpen. The 35-year-old left-hander shook his head and continued his pursuit of pitching a perfect game.

For the second consecutive outing, a Twins starter didn’t allow the Pittsburgh Pirates a runner through the first five innings. Keuchel kept his going through one out in the seventh before Bryan Reynolds broke up bids for both a no-hitter and perfect game with a double.

Behind Keuchel’s strong start and a pair of RBIs from rookie Edouard Julien, the Twins beat the Pirates, 2-0, on Sunday afternoon at Target Field in Minneapolis to win the three-game series.

Keuchel, the 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner, entered with a 9.45 ERA in two starts. He allowed only one hit in 61⁄3 scoreless innings, throwing 53 of his 85 pitches for strikes while recording three strikeouts without a walk and generating 10 groundouts and three flyouts.

“I think the biggest challenge was the changeup,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “You see why the guy has won the Cy Young, with the ability to execute the changeup like he did. He executed it both on and off the plate.”

Starting with Shelton, the Pirates weren’t happy with home plate umpire Laz Diaz’s strike zone. It provided a moving target, as the Pirates drew 21 called strikes, including 11 against Keuchel’s 33 sinkers and seven against his 22 cutters. He used the changeup to keep hitters off balance, getting 12 swings and four misses, per Statcast.

“Just changing speeds and keeping it down and running it off and just getting weak contact,” Reynolds said. “He was just making good pitches and, like I said, putting it kind of where he wanted.”

Short on starting pitchers, the Pirates used lefty Ryan Borucki as an opener. He struck out three of the six batters he faced in a pair of perfect innings before being replaced in the third inning by Osvaldo Bido.

Donovan Solano started the fourth inning with a single past the glove of diving shortstop Alika Williams, advanced to third on Carlos Correa’s single to right and scored on a sacrifice fly to the left field warning track by Julien to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.

Where Twins starter Sonny Gray threw five perfect innings before giving up four runs in the sixth in the Pirates’ 7-4 win Saturday night, Keuchel was perfect through the first six and won a couple close calls.

“Last night we did a good job bouncing back and won the game against a really effective starter,” Shelton said. “I think we saw a game today that Keuchel took advantage of a very liberal strike zone. When you get a veteran guy that can manipulate the ball the way he does, he did a good job doing that.”

Liover Peguero, who broke up Gray’s bid for perfection with a single Saturday, worked a full count against Keuchel in the sixth inning before swinging at an outside pitch for a fly out to right. Williams went down looking at a 2-2 cutter low and away for the final out in sixth.

“It makes it tougher for sure,” Pirates first baseman Connor Joe said. “As hitters and as an offensive unit, we come up with a game plan of what we’re trying to do to the opposing pitcher. If a guy is getting more of the plate than he should, as much as we try not to stray from our approach, it makes it tough. I mean, how many times can we strike out looking? It’s frustrating.”

The Twins increased their lead to 2-0 in the sixth, when Solano hit a leadoff double off Bido and scored when Julien doubled off lefty Jose Hernandez.

Ji Hwan Bae worked a full count to start the seventh before grounding out to third. Finally, Reynolds broke up both the perfect game and no-hitter with a double off the wall in right-center, prompting the Twins to pull Keuchel.

Right-hander Griffin Jax replaced Keuchel and got Andrew McCutchen and Ke’Bryan Hayes swinging for strikeouts to strand Reynolds and keep the Pirates scoreless.

Five Pirates pitchers combined for 16 strikeouts, but they couldn’t muster any offense. Joe drew a leadoff walk and advanced to second on a wild pitch by Caleb Thielbar in the seventh but was stranded.

With two outs in the ninth, Reynolds singled on a grounder to first by beating Jhoan Duran to the bag. Reynolds reached second on defensive indifference, but McCutchen grounded out to end the game.

The Pirates had no answer for Keuchel.

The two-time All-Star was 76-63 with a 3.66 ERA in seven seasons with Houston, winning the 2017 World Series, but has struggled since 2019. He was 25-29 with a 5.00 ERA and 1.52 WHIP in bouncing from Atlanta to the Chicago White to Arizona and Texas before catching on with the Twins.

“He’s still a good pitcher. He’s been really good for a long time,” Joe said. “He had pitches moving everywhere. He did a really good job keeping the ball down. That was a tough one. A guy like that really thrives on weak contact. Unfortunately, we had a lot of weak contact. He got us today. He had a better game than us.”

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