MINNEAPOLIS -- It has felt like the refrain for the past month or so from these Twins has been a constant emphasis that the offense has too much talent to be playing like this -- that they just need to execute better and play up to their potential, then the wins will follow.

Earlier this homestand, it looked as though the Twins had finally figured something out as they drowned the Royals in a veritable deluge of singles and professional at-bats for a three-game sweep that led to a four-game winning streak, their longest since May. But the makings of a groove has suddenly reverted back to a rut, as Minnesota saw once again in a 7-0 loss to Texas on Sunday afternoon at Target Field.

Following the four-hit shutout by Rangers pitchers Kohei Arihara and Taylor Hearn, the Twins have scored just five runs across the first three games of the four-game series against a Texas squad well below .500, one boasting a pitching staff that entered Sunday ranked 26th of 30 teams in the Majors, per WAR.

“We've had some games where we've had some tremendous at-bats,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We've had some games where we've gone quiet. I think those types of ups and downs from series to series can be a little frustrating. But you can't let those things overwhelm you going forward. You can get angry. You can get [ticked] off. And we have some guys that are. That's fine. We've got to show up tomorrow and be better.”

This is seemingly a continuation of the Twins’ season-long search for offensive consistency, made more confusing by the fact that the offense is largely healthy at the moment and has remained one of the top groups in the American League in aggregate, ranking fourth in the Junior Circuit in both WAR and wRC+.

And yet Minnesota has scored four or fewer runs in 16 of its past 22 games, and on Sunday, the club was shut out for the 12th time this season, tied for fourth most in the Majors. The Twins have recently said that their hitters may be trying to do too much to hit the team out of its offensive woes. That's natural, Carlos Correa says.

“I've been on teams that have won 107 games, and you usually go through two or three stretches like that throughout the season,” Correa said. “It's just part of the game.”

But Correa did go on to acknowledge that this situation isn’t necessarily comparable to those from his Houston days, considering the Twins are trying to chase down the Guardians in the AL Central from 1 1/2 games back.

“But at the same time, it's different when you're in second place and you're a game behind,” Correa continued. “After the year that we had last year, it's easier to just go out there and hit the panic button. But my job is to make sure that we always stay the course.”

This was supposed to be the easier part of the Twins’ schedule, a stretch of 10 games against teams below .500 ahead of the more intense upcoming stretch of series against the Astros, Giants, Red Sox, White Sox, Yankees and Guardians.

That’s the tough part -- these are the games the Twins should be winning in order to move up the standings, especially with how their pitching staff has performed during this homestand, with seven runs allowed in the first five games and another strong start from Joe Ryan on Sunday.

“It's not like it's the last week of the season,” Correa said. “There's still time to get better and make adjustments. It's time to go."

Considering what lies ahead, that could be easier said than done, but as the Twins pointed out, they’ve had strong performances against good teams, too, having played the Blue Jays well earlier this month. Their swing-and-miss rate isn’t up this month; their hard-hit rate is down, though.

They don’t think that level of performance is out of reach; they say they just need to find it, somehow.

“We have guys who know how to approach a pitcher, especially when we have a good heads-up on it -- who is going to use that changeup or split, and the breaking ball he’s going to flip in there,” Baldelli said. “We knew they were coming. We have to hit them. And we have to swing at the strikes and take the balls and hit the ball on the barrel. And we didn’t do enough of that. Not even close.”