Twins' struggles with RISP continue in 4th straight loss

ST. PETERSBURG -- The Twins’ bats were mostly silent. So was the clubhouse. At this point, until the results change, what is there to say?

“We’re not worried about this group,’’ catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “It’s the ebbs and flows of baseball.’’

Lately, it has been more ebbing than flowing. Saturday, the Twins again went down quietly at Tropicana Field, falling 6-1 against the Rays, avoiding the shutout on a bloop RBI single with two outs in the ninth inning.

The Twins (12-15) have lost eight of their last nine games -- and four straight -- while coming off an 8-1 stretch in which they averaged 6.7 runs per game.

“The first two weeks, we did a really good job with runners in scoring position,’’ Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “In the last two weeks, we have not done a good job. So we need to go back to the other way.’’

The Twins on Saturday with runners in scoring position: 1-for-9 (.111).

The Twins during the last nine games with runners in scoring position: 14-for-74 (.189).

“The situation would be more frustrating if we didn’t have guys on base,’’ Shelton said. “But we’re getting opportunities, so we’ve got to figure out ways to capitalize.’’

The Twins wasted a good effort from right-hander Bailey Ober (2-1), who allowed two runs and three hits over six innings.

With two outs in the fourth inning of a scoreless game, Ober tried to bust Yandy Díaz inside on the second pitch, but it got away for a hit batter. Ober opened with a nice changeup to Jake Fraley, but the second changeup was elevated and Fraley smashed it for a two-run homer and all the scoring the Rays would need.

“[Díaz] is a guy that’s hot,’’ Ober said. “He’s hitting balls like crazy. So I was just trying not to leave anything over the middle of the plate. The thought process was to just throw it for a ball to see if he could check-swing at it a little bit. It just ran a little bit too much. You never want to drill a guy, but with two outs and their best guy [getting just to first base], you limit the damage.

“The next pitch I threw to Fraley, I loved it. I was trying to do the exact same thing, but I left that pitch up. Other than that, I thought I mixed it pretty well and kept a lot of guys off-balance.’’

The Twins didn’t have an answer for Rays left-hander Shane McClanahan (2-2), who missed all of the past two seasons with injury and registered his first home victory since 2023. McClanahan allowed three harmless singles in five innings, walking two and striking out seven.

The Twins got just two hits in four innings of Rays’ bullpen work, including Royce Lewis’ two-out ninth-inning single that produced the only run. Meanwhile, the Rays tacked on against the Twins’ bullpen, getting three seventh-inning runs off Trevor Rogers (including an 0-and-2 double and a 1-and-2 triple), then an eighth-inning run on Ben Williamson’s two-out RBI double.

The Rays were opportunistic and the Twins were not.

“Honestly, I don’t think there’s a bad mood, a bad vibe or anything like that right now,’’ Jeffers said. “We want to get those hits in the big situations, but we understand how hard it is. I think overall, we’re still scoring some of the most runs in our sport.

“We’re going to continue to trust what we’ve been doing and know that those big hits will come.’’