MINNEAPOLIS -- Mr. Consistency has evolved into Mr. Quality Start.

It has been a full decade since the Twins last had a starting pitcher deliver eight consecutive quality starts, but that’s where Bailey Ober’s relentless consistency and growing upside have brought him this season -- and behind another seven sparkling innings of two-run ball from the 29-year-old on Saturday, the Twins found a 6-2 win over the White Sox.

An offense that struggled to do much against Chicago Opening Day starter Garrett Crochet did break through -- as it usually does -- against the White Sox bullpen, as Max Kepler hit the game-winning homer in the seventh inning off reliever Touki Toussaint and the offense surged for three more in the eighth to hand the struggling South Siders their 19th consecutive defeat.

“[Ober] just always executes,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It feels like he's just always executing in the sixth inning, the seventh inning, in these games, as well as he is in the second and the third. That's not typical. That's not what most guys do. That's what the good pitchers do and the guys that have sustained success for a long time.”

With the homer, Kepler made a big impact in his first game back -- off the bench on Saturday -- since his head contusion scare after he took a throw off his helmet in Wednesday’s series finale against the Mets. Ryan Jeffers also homered as part of a two-hit game as the pitchers’ duel progressed into the late innings before another late Twins rally.

And now that Ober’s strength, strike-throwing and durability have progressed over the course of four seasons and nearly 80 starts in the Major Leagues, this is seemingly who he has become for a Twins rotation that has really needed the stability this season. He again paved the path for the back end of the Minnesota bullpen -- Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran -- to close the game out.

The last Twins pitcher to throw eight consecutive quality starts had been Phil Hughes, in early 2014. With another in his next outing, Ober would become the first Twins starter since Nick Blackburn in ‘09 to make it nine in a row.

“We have a high standard for Bailey at this point,” Baldelli said. “He's had a lot of real nice starts for us. This was another one. Even late in the game, he's had so many starts where he's just cruised through six, seven or even eight innings.”

As the prevailing wisdom goes, the best pitchers are the ones who don’t just pitch well when they’re feeling at their best -- but are the ones who also find a way to be effective when they’re feeling far from great.

And even as part of this dominant quality start streak in which Ober has posted a 1.95 ERA over 55 1/3 innings -- just shy of averaging seven innings per start -- that’s what he has done, battling neck pain in perhaps his two most effective outings and struggling through command that he felt was far from his best on Saturday, to the point where he was giving himself little pep talks on the mound.

“Was a little all over the place more than normal today, so I just try to stay positive and kind of have positive self talk out there,” Ober said. “And really just try to get locked back in. I felt like every inning was kind of grinding through.”

It certainly didn’t show in the results.

Sure, Ober raised some eyebrows when his normally pinpoint control faltered with consecutive walks with two outs in the third inning, but he escaped fine. He hit the leadoff batter in the fifth before he allowed an RBI triple with two outs -- the first hit he allowed all evening.

But he only allowed two hits through seven innings -- the other being Brooks Baldwin’s solo shot in the sixth -- as he continued his relentless run of effective starts that has seen him post a 3.13 ERA in 20 starts since his season-opening blow-up (eight earned runs in 1 1/3 innings in Kansas City).

And to cap it all off, Ober flashed 92.6 mph on the radar gun -- well above his 91.9 mph season average -- as he neared the end of his outing in the seventh inning, a continued tangible sign of the work he’s done to turn himself from the soft-tossing, oft-injured 12th-round Draft pick to this dominant, consistent force on the mound.