MINNEAPOLIS -- Andre Pallante pitched seven innings of one-run ball and Brendan Donovan homered on Friday as the Cardinals beat the Twins, 6-1, at Target Field.

Pallante (6-6) sparkled in his second straight quality start, holding the Twins to one run on five hits with two walks and five strikeouts. He limited the Dodgers to two runs in seven innings on Aug. 17, giving him back-to-back wins for the first time since late June.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Pallante, however. The Twins put runners on the corners with one out in the first before Pallante induced a double-play grounder off the bat of Twins cleanup hitter Matt Wallner.

The start of the second inning played out the same way, with Twins runners on first and third with one out. This time, Pallante issued a walk to load the bases, and Austin Martin followed with a dribbler up the third-base line that went for an infield single, giving the Twins a 1-0 lead.

But Pallante quickly got locked in from there. Willi Castro hit a grounder to first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who fired home in time to get the forceout at the plate. Trevor Larnach then struck out to end the threat, stranding three runners.

That was the Twins’ last decent chance to score, as Pallante allowed only a two-out single by Ryan Jeffers in the third after that. The 25-year-old right-hander retired 17 of the last 18 hitters he faced, including the last 13 in a row.

Meanwhile, the Cardinals tied the game in the third on Masyn Winn’s two-out RBI single against rookie David Festa (2-3). Then aggressive baserunning resulted in a pair of runs in the fourth inning. Willson Contreras led off with a hustle double, just beating the throw at second base. After Donovan walked, the Cardinals pulled off a successful double steal. Lars Nootbaar promptly drove them in with a double down the right-field line.

Donovan’s homer leading off the sixth made it 4-1, and the Cards bunched two hits, two walks and a sacrifice fly to tack on two more runs in the eighth.