Minnesota Twins experience a Texas buzzsaw massacre, losing 16-4 to the Rangers

It’s as if all this is scripted. The moment the Twins’ pitching rotation is diluted by shoulder injuries, they’re facing their former righthander who would really look good in a Twins uniform right now.

Drama, comedy, tragedy — you decide. All the Twins know is, it kind of hurts to get beat by an old friend.

Tyler Mahle, who pitched only nine times during the two seasons he spent with the Twins after a big trade with Cincinnati, made his 13th start of the season for the Rangers on Tuesday and cruised to an 16-4 victory at Target Field.

“It was cool. Minnesota is nice, I like it here. Cool stadium and everything. But I didn’t pitch a ton here, so there wasn’t a whole lot of sentimental value,” Mahle said after his sixth victory of the season — four more than he won with the Twins. “But they probably weren’t happy with me after what I did here.”

Actually, it was the Rangers’ bats that particularly annoyed the Twins, considering four Rangers drove in multiple runs, including five by catcher and ninth-place hitter Kyle Higashioka and four by Josh Jung.

The oft-injured Mahle wasn’t especially sharp, at least after starting with three shutout innings, allowing 10 hits and four runs over 5⅔ innings. But it was arguably his worst outing of the season, and definitely the most runs he’s allowed. Mahle’s ERA stands at 2.34 after 77 innings this year, and he kept the damage from mounting as the Rangers kept providing more and more cushion for him to work with.

“Yeah, you wish he was pitching like that for us. I mean, c’mon, of course we do,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli admitted. “But he gave us everything he had. What else was he going to do? He was injured.”

The Rangers’ offense, which entered the game as the lowest-scoring team in the American League, got healthy quick against Simeon Woods Richardson, pressed into MLB service again by Zebby Matthews’ shoulder injury, and the lonesome end of the Twins’ bullpen. Their 16 runs were a season high and the most the Twins have allowed.

Woods Richardson allowed seven runs, six earned, over 4⅔ innings, allowing seven hits and walking three. Justin Topa relieved him and recorded four outs, giving up three runs on four hits. And Jorge Alcalá, who has allowed runs to score in nine of his 22 appearances this year, watched his ERA balloon to 8.88 by giving up six runs while retiring only five batters.

The brightest spots in the bullpen? Danny Coulombe, making his first appearance since May 14, retired the only hitter he faced, and infielder Jonah Bride pitched for the second time in six days, this time without allowing a run. No Twins reliever struck out a batter, either.

BOXSCORE: Rangers 16, Twins 4

MLB standings

Wait, Tyler Mahle starts and Jorge Alcalá gives up a fistful of runs? The Twins better hope that’s not a premonition, because the last time they witnessed that combination, it was the first loss of their 12-27 collapse of 2024.

Despite the rout, the Twins weren’t unhappy with their own attack, though their four runs were pocket change compared to the Rangers’ haul. But they piled up 12 hits, including Matt Wallner’s solo home run, his fourth since being activated 10 days ago. Every Twins starter, in fact, collected a hit. Trouble was, so did every Ranger.

“There are a lot of different scenarios where we pitch better, we play better behind our pitchers, and we’re sitting there in a ballgame,” Baldelli said. “We’ve won a bunch of those games when we swing the bats the way we did today. That was at least something you can walk away with and think, ‘Let’s do something like that again tomorrow and put some runs on the board.’ ”