'We kept playing hard': Twins' late resilience a silver lining in defeat

HOUSTON -- The Twins haven’t exactly gone into a ton of details about what transpired in that players-only meeting in their clubhouse at Nationals Park on May 20 following a seventh consecutive loss.

But what’s known is that in addition to some talk about confidence in the clubhouse and the need to have more fun, there was also a reckoning about their general vibe and energy level when under stress -- both in games and in the big picture -- and the importance of making sure not to mentally take themselves out of such games at the first sign of resistance.

“It was kind of a cut-the-crap kind of moment,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Whether we're up two, tied or down two, you need to play the same way. There was a period of time we were not. We would go down and it was like, 'That's happening again?' That's done. I haven't seen any of that at all. That's been very welcomed and something I think the players demanded of themselves.”

There was plenty of that resistance on Saturday, when Astros starter Framber Valdez carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning -- but in pushing back in an eventual 5-2 loss at Minute Maid Park, the Twins applied full pressure in the seventh and eighth innings and got to a point where they even had the tying run at the plate, though they were ultimately out-executed on both sides.

“Before that talk we had as a team, it felt like if we were down, 2-0, we already lost the game and there was no energy and no desire to come back,” Carlos Correa said. “We said, ‘We can’t keep doing this. If we want to get to where we want to get, we’re going to be down for a couple of innings, and we have to figure out a way to fight back.’”

Ultimately, they couldn’t overcome the season-high four homers allowed by Joe Ryan to a scuffling but talented Astros lineup, with two coming off the bat of Yordan Alvarez, another from longtime Twins nemesis José Abreu and one from Kyle Tucker.

Though homers on mis-executed pitches have been Ryan’s downfall in the past when he’s been ineffective, he actually felt he executed the pitches he wanted on every homer but the one Tucker hit -- and the Astros’ bats simply executed better to put the Twins in a 5-0 hole.

But Minnesota did get part of the way back in the seventh, when the single up the middle by Manuel Margot to break up the no-hitter led to a two-out run scoring on Jose Miranda’s RBI single, followed by a walk to Byron Buxton before Willi Castro grounded out to end the inning.

“We need some guys on base, and we knew that we didn't have a hit,” Christian Vázquez said. “So after that, everybody just relaxed and tried to get better at-bats.”

And in the eighth, the Twins put four of their first five hitters on base with two singles and a pair of walks -- but the one they didn’t get hurt them, as Vázquez grounded into a double play in the midst of that rally for the first two outs of the frame. Still, a Correa RBI single put runners on the corners for Ryan Jeffers (who struck out) in a 5-2 game as the Twins scrapped for a chance.

Both in the game and afterwards -- when players chatted in the clubhouse and light music played -- it certainly didn’t feel as flat as the Twins perhaps did at times amid their 7-13 start to the season and the seven-game skid that ended following that May 20 meeting in Washington D.C.

With nods to a well-executed game by Valdez and another stellar defensive effort by Tucker in right field, the Twins prepared to move on after only their third loss in their last 11 games -- and in that stretch, they’ve had several of those late surges, and came one or two big hits away from another on Saturday.

“Even with that, we had some opportunities late in the game to pop something and get the game a lot closer,” Baldelli said. “We were able to get their closer in the game at the end, which after six innings, it’s not happening at that point. We kept playing hard. We got beat today.”