MINNEAPOLIS -- The Royals don’t play well at Target Field, nor against the Twins in general, and Tuesday night was no different.

Starter Seth Lugo allowed eight runs (seven earned) in four-plus innings Tuesday, leading to a 13-3 drubbing at the hands of the team the Royals are trying to keep pace with in the playoff race.

“Nobody wants to lose, especially against a team that’s in our division, hunting for the same thing,” MJ Melendez said. “Trying to make a playoff push. We’ve got to do better, be better, all around.”

Salvador Perez, who homered in the sixth, added: “It’s been kind of tough for us the last two games. But it’s over. Nothing we can do about that. We need to [concentrate] for tomorrow and try to get one here.”

By the time the first inning was over, the Royals were down three runs. Lugo allowed the first four batters he faced to reach base (one via an error on third baseman Maikel Garcia). The Royals got one back in the top of the second with Melendez’s home run off rookie Zebby Matthews making his MLB debut, but the Twins never let up, scoring in six of their eight innings at the plate.

“It was a bad one,” Lugo said. “Didn’t pitch deep in the game. Gave up a lot of runs. Not where I want to be.”

The Royals’ rotation has been one of the best in baseball this year, but stretches of regression or fatigue were to be expected over the course of a 162-game season. Lugo, who reached his career high in innings two starts ago against Detroit, has now allowed six or more runs in three of his last four starts. He was hit hard Tuesday night, with the Twins averaging a 90 mph exit velocity against him. His called strike and whiff percentage was 23%. The Twins didn’t seem fooled.

“I feel great,” Lugo said. “Velocity was up there pretty good tonight. I made a couple of mistakes, but I feel like I executed a lot of pitches. I feel like physically, I’m in a good spot. … I haven’t noticed [anything]. I think it’s something I’m going to dig into and try to find out.”

Lugo allowed a run and loaded the bases without recording an out in the fifth inning, ending his outing at 83 pitches.

“Seth could have stayed in there,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “He had pitches. But I figured, in an opportunity like this -- to save an inning and play the long game -- I thought that was the right thing to do.”

With the bullpen allowing another five runs, the Royals have allowed 21 runs in the past two games.

“I think they have a good approach,” Lugo said of the Twins’ offense. “They got a good way of putting together at-bats that we haven’t figured out yet on a consistent basis. That’s an adjustment we need to make.

“... Pitch sequencing, location, where they’re trying to hit the ball. That’s just something we have to be a little better with.”

The Royals are 2-7 against Minnesota this year with four more games still to play after Tuesday night, including Wednesday’s series finale with Cole Ragans on the mound and a big series in September in Kansas City.

They’ve lost all three series against Minnesota this season thus far and haven’t won a series at Target Field since September 2021.

The Royals simply don’t look like themselves here.

“I mean, I don’t know,” Melendez said of the Royals’ recent history at Target Field. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. We don’t want to come in here and lose ballgames. We’re trying to win. I don’t know what it is. We just got to keep going, and hopefully things will change. We just got to keep playing our game.”

After Tuesday, the Royals dropped to six games behind the first-place Guardians in the American League Central and 2 1/2 behind the Twins for the second AL Wild Card spot -- although the Twins hold the tiebreaker should that come up by the end of the season. The Royals still have a one-game lead on Boston for the third Wild Card spot, but the Red Sox also hold the tiebreaker over Kansas City.

The Royals will face the Guardians and Twins 11 times in the next 24 games. They’ll also be playing the Phillies and Astros in that stretch, both contenders. The Yankees are still on the schedule in September, too.

“[The Twins] have just gotten the better of us,” Melendez said. “We need to flip the script there. But we’ve got to take it one day at a time to do that. We can’t take it all back at once.”