MINNEAPOLIS -- For more than two hours and seven innings, the Giants' pitching was holding down the Twins and looking to carry the team while the offense had just one hit.

When the teams came back after a 51-minute rain delay, San Francisco’s one-run lead evaporated. After a strong night of pitching, too many free passes undid the Giants’ slim margin for error.

Dominic Leone (4-5) walked three batters, one intentionally, and allowed the automatic runner to score in the 10th inning of Saturday’s 3-2 loss. Leone’s four-pitch walk to Gilberto Celestino with the bases loaded pushed across the winning run and sent San Francisco to a seventh loss in nine games.

“It was just a big situation and that’s usually not like him,” Giants catcher Joey Bart said. “He usually comes in and attacks. Some days, sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”

Bart had the lone hit before the rain delay, snapping Sonny Gray’s no-hit bid with a one-out double in the fifth inning. Luis González, who was hit by a pitch before Bart’s double, scored on Tommy La Stella’s sacrifice fly.

It was the lone run in the game until the ninth, with San Francisco starter Alex Cobb and relievers Zack Littell and Alex Young holding down Minnesota’s offense.

The Giants pushed across another run in the ninth, with Wilmer Flores scoring on Austin Slater’s sacrifice fly, but the Twins tied the game in the bottom of the inning off San Francisco closer Camilo Doval, who was trying for the four-out save.

“When you have Doval available in a bullpen that’s struggling and you don’t use him for a four-out save, that’s going to be questioned,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said. “That’s understandable and when you do use him in a situation like that and he goes back out for his second inning and it doesn’t work out, it’s going to be questioned. That’s part of the job and I understand it.

“Doval did a nice job in a tough situation and got us out of that inning. He threw two pitches, so he’s plenty fresh for the second inning as well. He just wasn’t able to execute enough strikes and that was the difference.”

The Twins had runners on first and third in the eighth and Doval, who had been 18-for-20 in save opportunities this season, stranded them. But he walked the leadoff hitter in the ninth and both free passes in the inning came around to score, setting up the pivotal 10th.

González started the inning as the automatic runner and was thrown out trying to advance to third on a ground ball.

“Right now Luis is, as he’s developing into a Major League player, he just doesn’t trust himself enough,” Kapler said. “So he’s kind of in between, and being in between on the bases is not conducive to making good reads.”

In the bottom of the 10th, Nick Gordon’s sacrifice bunt leading off the inning moved the automatic runner to third. Leone walked Gio Urshela, which led to an intentional walk to Max Kepler to load the bases.

But Leone -- who had a 2.25 ERA over his first 25 games this season but has a 6.43 ERA in 26 games since -- issued four straight balls to end the game. The Giants had entered the day 49-1 this season when leading after the eighth inning.

“It’s just sometimes you don’t have the really good command of the strike zone,” Kapler said. “That’s my best assessment of the situation.”