OAKLAND, Calif. >> Bailey Ober was through six innings when he first started thinking about throwing a complete game. His pitch count was low and he was in control. After he got through the seventh inning, he walked past Twins pitching coach Pete Maki in the dugout and made his intentions clear.

“(I) said, ‘I’m finishing this thing,’” Ober said.

And true to his word, he did.

Ober twirled the first complete game of his major league career — and his first since his senior year of college — in the Twins’ 10-2 thrashing of the Athletics on Saturday at the Oakland Coliseum.

He appeared to get stronger as his day went on, striking all three batters he faced in the eighth inning and finishing his day by sending down the last 17 batters in order. Ober struck out 10, tying a career-high, and he did all that on just 89 pitches.

“I’ve seen some exceptional pitching performances, but it was just nothing but effectiveness, everywhere you looked,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “ … Everything he was doing was working.”

Ober gave up a solo home run in the first inning to JJ Bleday, tying the game at the time, and a leadoff home run to Tyler Soderstrom an inning later. But for the most part, the starter was dominant, stifling the Athletics all day.

Shaking off those two early home runs and not letting things spiral, catcher Ryan Jeffers said, was the most impressive thing he saw from behind the plate.

“Earlier in the game, obviously with the two home runs, they were jumping first-pitch fastballs,” Ober said. “We made an adjustment off that and threw more off-speed first pitch, or if we were going to throw a fastball, just don’t go in because they were trying to turn and burn on those. I was able to execute those off-speed pitches and that was able to keep me going.”

Ober, who was making the 72nd start of his 4-year career, finished the day with a career-high 23 swings and misses. Nine of them came on his changeup.

He did almost all of this while pitching with a healthy lead after a seemingly harmless pop fly that Willi Castro hit to shallow right field fell between two fielders and triggered an avalanche of pain for the Athletics (29-50).

Castro’s double was the beginning of a seven-run second inning for the Twins (42-35). It set off a stretch in which six straight batters reached base. During that run, Manuel Margot hit a three-run home run and Jose Miranda sent a double to the gap, bringing home another pair of runs.

Later in the inning, Byron Buxton drove in a run with a double and Kyle Farmer had a run-scoring single, helping put the game firmly out of reach with the way Ober was throwing. Margot and Miranda each finished with three hits and three RBIs while Carlos Correa added three hits of his own and Royce Lewis went 2 for 5.

“I always say hitting is contagious,” said Jeffers, who reached base on a hit, walk, error and hit by pitch. “It’s one of the truest statements out there. When balls are finding the grass, it seems like everybody can find the grass.”

And all that offense helped Ober settle in and cruise through his complete-game effort.

“As a starting pitcher, that’s the goal every single game is to go out and finish the whole game and keep your team in it,” Ober said. “Thankfully we had a huge lead at the beginning of the game and I could go out there and be relaxed and throw strikes.”