Baldelli to Twins on skid: 'Tough to stomach'

Kenta Maeda’s shoulders slumped and his body language betrayed his disappointment after José Ramírez took him deep in the first inning on Tuesday. Contact king Luis Arraez uncharacteristically flailed and missed at a pitch well out of the zone in the eighth inning and flung his arms in frustration as he walked toward the dugout.

It was but another chapter of an all-too-familiar story early this season: The Twins’ bats just didn’t have enough punch in big spots and the bullpen let in two late runs as Minnesota dropped another close game to Cleveland, 7-4, on Tuesday night. It was the Twins’ fourth straight loss and their 13th defeat in 15 games following a 5-2 start to the season.

• Box score

And after this one, there was no doubt in manager Rocco Baldelli’s mind that he needed to address his team.

“It’s been about as tough a stretch as I’ve ever seen in professional baseball,” Baldelli said. “The way we’ve played these games, we’ve had our guts ripped out over and over again, is what I said. And our guys have continued to give everything they have.”

It’s not that the Twins have been clearly outclassed or blown away by the opposition amid this 7-15 start, their worst record through 22 games since the 2016 team that went 59-103. In fact, only three of those 15 losses have been decided by a margin of more than four runs. Minnesota has been tied or ahead during the eighth inning in seven of those losses.

“It’s not just the wins and losses,” Baldelli said. “It’s the way these games have played out that has made them especially tough to stomach. And when that happens, that’s when I think the team needs to be brought together and discuss things as a group.”

The starting rotation has actually been quite effective this season, ranking second in the American League with a 3.72 ERA entering Tuesday. Maeda, the club’s Opening Day starter, hasn’t shared that success as he’s worked through mechanical adjustments. And though Maeda felt good about that work, Cleveland’s batters still tagged his mistakes for three home runs -- one by Ramírez and two from Franmil Reyes.

Maeda had also allowed three homers in his last start against the A’s. It marked the first time in his six-year MLB career that he allowed three homers in consecutive starts.

“I was debating to go with one pitch or the other, and had I thrown the other pitch, the result might have changed -- and same goes for the second home run,” Maeda said.

And so it goes for the Twins right now.

Despite Byron Buxton moving into a tie for the AL lead with his seventh homer, Nelson Cruz hitting his first triple since 2018 and No. 2 prospect Alex Kirilloff notching his first career RBI, the Twins’ offense was held to four or fewer runs for the 12th time in its last 13 games.

But the Twins actually led the AL with a 42 percent hard-hit rate entering Tuesday, and their average exit velocity of 89.7 mph was second only to the Blue Jays. But the results haven’t followed -- just ask Kirilloff, who entered the game 1-for-18 but was hitting the ball well enough for a .293 expected batting average and an expected slugging percentage of .608, per Statcast.

That’s not to mention the struggles of the bullpen, and in particular Alex Colomé, who was signed to pitch in Minnesota’s highest-leverage situations but was demoted before Tuesday’s game, then turned in another tough outing with a hit batter and three walks -- including one with the bases loaded.

The Twins have been outscored 41-20 from the seventh inning on this season.

The point of this team meeting, then, was that Baldelli understands how demoralizing it is for his players to be in so many close games but fall just short, time after time. They’re hitting the ball hard. The starters are pitching well. They’ve endured a COVID-19 outbreak. Heck, Cruz is legging out infield hits and triples at age 40.

It might be tough to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now, but Baldelli wanted to make sure his team knows that he recognizes the toll this stretch has taken on them.

“I can’t be upset with the effort I’m getting from our guys or anything like that,” Baldelli said. “And that’s the only thing we can control right now. We can’t control our results, we can’t control any of that. We can control what we put into it, and we’ve done that.

“I have to acknowledge for our group, these guys have been busting their [rears], and the way you’ve been losing games, just the feel out there on the field, it’s very tough.”