Another winning streak will have to wait until at least Wednesday for the Minneosta Twins.
Despite pulling out a comeback win on Monday night, the Twins were unable to do it again on Tuesday and imploded late against the Seattle Mariners. It was truly a bottom falling out series of events, as bad decisions and poor play led to a 10-6 loss.
Eight of those runs game in the last three innings, with the Mariners essentially ending any hope of another comeback by scoring four runs un the top of the ninth,
It was an uncharacteristically bad game for the Twins given how things had gone over the last two weeks. Minnesota was 13-1 in its last fourteen games coming into Tuesday, and seemed to have turned a corner from the poor play that plagued the team earlier in the year.
All of that reared its truly ugly head late in the loss against Seattle, and Rocco Baldelli wasn't too pleased about what he saw.
Rocco Baldelli has blunt explanation why the Twins melted down late against Mariners
After the game Baldelli seemed to initially be at a loss for words over what led tot he meltdown, but ended up getting pretty blunt with his explanation.
"It was a challenging one to work through because you feel like you take a few steps forward, and we did a lot of good things today, but it was hard to put all of the pieces together," Baldelli said. "It was a tough one, may be hard to put a few words together on this one."
Baldelli did put some words together, though, and frustratedly pointed out the obvious.
"We didn't play a complete game, we played pieces of a game," Baldelli said. "We gave up eight runs and didn't pitch great and didn't play good defense for the last three innings of the game. That's why we lost."
"We didn't play the kind of baseball we've been playing."
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) May 8, 2024
Rocco Baldelli discusses the 10-6 loss to Seattle. #MNTwins | #MLB pic.twitter.com/CTCYfuAWC1
He's not wrong, as Austin Martin and Jorge Alcala combined for a truly terrible ninth inning full of mistakes. Martin missed a fly ball at the warning track which resulted in a leadoff triple, while Alcala proceeded to give up three straight hits.
When the dust settled, Seattle had scored four runs and all but put the game out of reach.
It wasn't just that bad inning that cost the Twins, as the offense scored six runs and the team still lost. That's the most demoralizing part about what happened on Tuesday but it's not the team we saw over the last 12 games and hopefully won't be seen from much anymore.