Miscues aplenty sting Twins in finale vs. Bucs

MINNEAPOLIS -- After smacking a hit to right field, Miguel Sano rounded second, overrunning the base by just a couple of steps. He was tagged out, ending a mistake-filled game in a fitting way as the Twins fell to the Pirates, 10-4, on Wednesday afternoon at Target Field.

Perhaps starter Ervin Santana summed it up best after the game.

"Today was tough. Tough outing for me, tough defense," Santana said. "Everything was tough today."

Santana made an error of his own, missing a catch in the third inning for the first of three Twins errors.

"There's no way to coach it," center fielder Aaron Hicks said. "Errors are going to happen throughout the year. You just hope it doesn't add into anything else."

But the Twins weren't so lucky with their subsequent errors. The dagger came in the sixth inning, when the Bucs scored five runs, three of which came on a two-error play

Video: PIT@MIN: Bucs score three on Cutch's Little League HR

Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen, who had sent his 14th home run of the season into the stands to tie the game an inning before, followed that up with a Little League home run on a play where pretty much nothing went right for Minnesota.

With two on and two out, McCutchen lined a single into right field that skipped past Twins right fielder Eddie Rosario. Rosario then threw it to second baseman Brian Dozier, whose relay went through third baseman Eduardo Nunez's legs. Nunez, in an attempt to corral the ball, collided with McCutchen, who was then awarded home. Both Rosario and Nunez were given errors.

On top of that, Sano got caught in a rundown between first and second, and left fielder Shane Robinson found himself in a rundown of his own, though he eventually got back to third base safely.

"Nobody's trying to have baserunning errors or make errors. It just happened today," Hicks said. "It just happened all in one game. All you can do is try your best not to do it."

With the loss, Minnesota fell to 2-8 in its past 10 games, and the club has dropped four straight. Though the Twins are still clinging to the second American League Wild Card spot, they will need to be better moving forward to maintain their positioning.

"You look around and we're making mistakes defensively and on the bases and little things that you'd like to clean up. I don't think we've played a clean game for a while," manager Paul Molitor said. "You're going to make some mistakes, and we learn from that. We just try to address those things the best we can when they happen. And when we practice, we try to address them, but it hasn't been showing up in the game very much as of late."