MINNEAPOLIS -- Only six times in team history has a Twins pitcher allowed nine or more earned runs in two or fewer innings -- and it’s now happened twice this week.

This time it was rookie Zebby Matthews who fell on the wrong side of history as he was ambushed for nine runs in a two-inning start. There was no sugarcoating anything the way the game continued to spiral, turning into a 15-0 thumping by the Blue Jays that matched the second-largest margin of defeat in club history in a shutout loss.

If it served as any consolation at all after one of the most one-sided losses in team history -- one in which the Twins allowed 23 hits, their most in a game since 2011 -- it’s that every relevant team around them in the AL Central and AL Wild Card standings all lost, with the Guardians, Royals and Red Sox all falling to maintain the Twins’ relative place in both standings.

So if nothing else, that should at least make it a little easier to rinse a historically tough night.

“I've moved on, I'll tell you that,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I'm pretty sure our guys will be fine moving on from this one. There aren't going to be too many good memories from the evening tonight, but you're going to run into games like this. You're going to have a few games like this over the course of a season no matter what.”

All the Twins care to take away from this game is that their young starter learns from the experience. This sort of outing won’t impact the way the Twins view Matthews, their Top 100 prospect (No. 84 overall) who is, and still will be, an important factor in Minnesota's ultimate fortunes this season.

There wasn’t really a lot to unpack in this one; Matthews threw strikes, and the Blue Jays hit them. It was an odd outing in which his stuff still mostly seemed to be there, and he even got 12 swinging strikes on his 69 pitches, tied for the most whiffs among his four career starts, but his mistakes got hit hard.

“I think the stuff felt good for the most part tonight, but the execution just wasn’t there,” Matthews said. “I wasn’t putting pitches where I needed to, so they were able to put the barrel on the ball.”

That will happen, especially for an extreme strike-thrower like Matthews. Eight of the first nine Blue Jays hitters to step to the plate all reached base, including two-run homers by Daulton Varsho and Spencer Horwitz, and a two-run double by Leo Jiménez.

That was that, with Toronto putting up seven runs in the first inning, as Baldelli was already getting to thinking about which position player he’d eventually need to put into the game. That ended up being Kyle Farmer, who amusingly made history of his own by setting the Twins record for most innings pitched in a game by a position player, with two.

One inning later, Matthews had allowed another two-run blast -- this one to Addison Barger -- and that inning ended his night.

“Learn something from it,” Baldelli said. “I don't care what happens, as long as he takes something out of this outing that he can use next time he pitches.”

Indeed, because there will certainly be a next time.

This is simply the position the Twins are in down the stretch, forced to roll with the growing pains of their young duo of Top 100 prospects-turned-rotation-mainstays in Matthews and David Festa amid the concurrent chase to not only hold their playoff spot, but also to chase down the Guardians and Royals in the division.

“If you’re here, you have to pull your weight,” Baldelli said. “You have to go out there and produce. You might not lean on him like he’s Pablo López, but you have to lean on him.”

Festa has seemingly emerged from his early-career blips, especially with facing opposing lineups multiple times through, showing his development with a stellar outing against the Braves his last time out. Matthews is in a similar position, with five fewer MLB appearances under his belt.

It’s now up to him to respond to this roadblock.

“I’ve got a lot to learn,” Matthews said. “A lot of it is just how you respond. At the end of the day, I can’t go back out and change what happened tonight, but I can do better next time.”