For Twins, 'things didn’t come together' vs. KC

KANSAS CITY -- For the sliding Twins, there’s something in play besides the American League Central title that they’ve been chasing for months. Fourteen games to go and the overriding question now is whether Minnesota can salvage a winning season.

With their 5-4 loss to the Royals on Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium, the Twins (73-75) find themselves two games under .500 and eight games back of first-place Cleveland. Minnesota never would have imagined that the .500 mark would be an issue on Aug. 19, when the team was seven over or even on Aug. 30, when the Twins were six over.

But for a club that occupied first place in the division for a long stretch of the season, the reality is that the Twins have to get going again if they are to avoid a losing record in 2022.

The Twins burst to a 3-0 lead against the Royals and cranked out 10 hits over 5 1/3 innings against veteran Zack Greinke. But Minnesota starter Dylan Bundy gave up two homers and reliever Michael Fulmer surrendered a go-ahead RBI single to Salvador Perez in the seventh that left Minnesota searching for answers in what is now a 1-5 road trip.

“We had some shots on the offensive side and we had some shots to shut them down at times when we had the lead,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Things didn’t come together exactly the way we would want.”

That general theme has remained constant for the Twins during the road trip. Whatever they do, the opposition seems to have the remedy.

Bundy started strong, but the 3-0 lead got away when he allowed a two-run homer to MJ Melendez in the third and a solo blast to Hunter Dozier in the fifth.

“The two-run homer really hurt,” Bundy said; “Throw a changeup low in the one and [Melendez] was looking for it. He was thinking ahead of me there, I think.”

The Twins endured a scary few moments in the seventh when Carlos Correa collected his third hit and then tried to steal second. As the out call was made, Correa clutched at his surgically repaired right ankle and stayed down. But it turned out that he was fine.

“He just hit my [surgery inserted] plate,” Correa said of Royals second baseman Michael Massey when he applied the tag. “Just kind of felt numb … vibrating. So, I was just waiting for it to calm down. It was a little scary, but when I moved, I knew I was good.”

Trailing 4-3, the Twins had runners at second and third with two outs in the eighth. Mark Contreras, who took over in center field for Gilberto Celestino in the fourth, struck out to end the threat. Baldelli said he made the personnel move in center to send a “hard message” to Celestino.

Celestino made a baserunning mistake when he failed to tag up at third in the second inning, but that didn’t end up costing the Twins, thanks to Correa’s two-run single with two outs. Celestino later objected to a 3-1 called strike in the fourth before grounding out.

“There are hard lessons sometimes in the game,’ Baldelli said. “He’s a guy that I think can take a hard message. He made some mental errors during the games recently. He knows it. He needs to make some adjustments.

“On top of the initial baserunning error that he made today, he had a tough at-bat. You have to finish your at-bat and keep playing the game. And then he walked all the way back toward the plate. Basically, it held the game up. He owes it to his teammates to do a better job. That was really the message.”