Twins go into All-Star break under .500 with 2-1 loss to Pirates but might have momentum

The Twins go into the All-Star break two games under .500 after giving up the go-ahead run in the ninth inning in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates but might still have momentum on their side.

The loss meant the Twins settled for a 6-3 record over nine games at Target Field, winning two out of three in each series against Tampa Bay, the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh. Each time, the Twins won the first two games of the series but couldn’t complete the sweep.

But before the Tampa Bay series, the Twins hadn’t won a series in a month.

“You feel like you can build off that momentum we’ve had for a while now,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We weren’t able to do it today. It was a tough one, a little frustrating. But I’m sitting here thinking more about the way we’ve played the last couple of weeks. Some of our best baseball, clearly.”

Sunday’s loss meant the Twins enter the All-Star break with a losing record at 47-49. They were undone by a ninth inning that lacked the walk-off magic they found more than once to begin this homestand.

Pittsburgh, which had lost the first eight games of its nine-game road trip, produced an opportunistic ninth-inning run after hitting three consecutive one-out singles off Jhoan Duran to load the bases. Ke’Bryan Hayes rolled a single up the middle; speedy Oneil Cruz hit an infield roller that Duran couldn’t grab with his bare hand; and onetime Twin-for-a-day Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a line drive to center for his fourth single of the day.

With the bases loaded, Spencer Horwitz smashed an 0-2 fastball to second baseman Brooks Lee. But Lee, who dived to grab the ball, couldn’t immediately pull it out of his glove.

What might have been a spectacular inning-ending double play or a throw home instead ended up surrendering the winning run when Lee had nowhere else to go but first base for the second out.

“They put the ball in play,” Baldelli said. “We were set up. [Lee] made a really good play on the ball. That ball is hit hard, and it finds his glove. It was in his glove before anyone could even move. It was hit that hard.

“But that’s the game we play. Sometimes you can do a lot of things right and you may not get it done. But we’ve been getting it done more often than not.”

Carlos Correa led off the bottom of the ninth with a single, but he was left stranded there and Twins players and coaches scattered for four days. Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan are headed to Atlanta for the All-Star Game. Other players and coaches will be both near and far. Baldelli said he will stay home and “do whatever my daughter wants to do.”

Continuing his tear, Buxton accounted for the Twins’ only run with an RBI double in the third, tying the score at 1 an inning after the Pirates’ Tommy Pham launched a 421-foot home run off Simeon Woods Richardson.

When asked whether he will watch Buxton compete in the Home Run Derby on Monday night, Twins reliever Brock Stewart said: “Absolutely not. Love him, but I’ll be on Lake Minnetonka with some friends. I’m sticking around here.”

BOXSCORE: Pittsburgh 2, Twins 1

MLB standings

When they resume the season Friday night in Denver against the MLB-worst Colorado Rockies, the Twins will seek to find again that momentum they discovered at home these past nine games.

“Nothing has changed with the clubhouse vibes, the hard work that everybody puts in, none of that has changed,” said Stewart, one of four relievers called on to pitch after Woods Richardson went 4⅔ innings. “I definitely think it’s sustainable. We’ve got some guys coming back. We know we’re capable of winning in the second half and putting something special together. It’s just a matter of doing it. We have the guys to go do it.”

Said Baldelli: “I’d say we pitched really well [this homestand] and everything is going to start there, always. You’re not going to beat good teams, you’re not going to play consistently good baseball unless your pitchers are going out there and giving you a great chance. We’ve had a lot of guys go out there, take their turn and help us win games.”