MINNEAPOLIS -- Hours before first pitch on Friday against the Tigers, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli fielded a question about what, exactly, was holding his team back from stringing together more wins to put more distance between itself and the rest of a struggling American League Central.

“Just consistency, general consistency,” Baldelli said. “If we had the offensive consistency that we expect from our group, then we'd have more wins. ... We've scored enough runs. We've done a lot of damage in some games and very little damage in other games. If we just had a little bit more consistency there in the at-bats, as we've talked about a lot, we'd have more wins.”

That sentiment certainly rang true in the first two games of this series against the Tigers. The runs had been coming in bunches earlier in the week, but the Twins were held hitless for the final six innings of Thursday’s loss to Detroit, then limited to an Alex Kirilloff solo homer during a Tigers bullpen game in a 7-1 loss on Friday night at Target Field.

The inconsistency didn’t stop there, as the sloppiness that has flared up at points in this season on the basepaths and in the field again factored into a pair of key situations, with a baserunning miscommunication at third base likely costing the Twins at least a run and a defensive misplay immediately afterwards leading to the Tigers’ biggest rally, a five-run third inning against starter Joe Ryan.

“Well, we shot ourselves in the foot,” Baldelli said. “And we don’t make the play to start the inning in the field. You’re going to have to play crisper baseball in the field. We can say, ‘We have to overcome these things to win the game,’ [but] you can’t do that too often and think you’re just going to continually come back and get the job done.”

After a promising stretch in which the Twins took two of three from the Blue Jays in Toronto and swept a two-game series against the Brewers, they’ve dropped two in a row to the Tigers to fall back to .500.

“I know everybody here has the ability to enjoy and play the game the right way and win against any team in this league,” Donovan Solano said. “That's what I'm looking for every single day. … I think the pressure is put on us to try to win because it's the same division, and it maybe causes a lot of things. We need to delete that and enjoy every single day of the game.”

He is right; the Twins have claimed recent series wins against both the Blue Jays and Astros on the road, and won the season series against the Yankees. But their lack of consistent offense has once again flared up after a strong stretch against Toronto and Milwaukee, leading in part to two losses against a Tigers team that entered the series having lost 11 of their past 12 games.

Self-inflicted errors won’t help find that consistency, either.

The Twins pulled ahead in the second inning on an opposite-field homer by Alex Kirilloff, his first blast since May 21, and they followed with a Solano single and Joey Gallo double. Third-base coach Tommy Watkins immediately threw up a stop sign for Solano, then appeared to briefly wave him home after the throw sailed over the first cutoff man.

When Tigers shortstop Javier Báez backed up the throw, Watkins flipped to a stop sign -- but it was too late. Solano was already past third base, and Báez’s relay throw caught him off the bag for the second out. Christian Vázquez’s inning-ending flyout might have brought Solano home for another run, but the Twins instead settled for a 1-0 lead.

“I didn't see,” Solano said. “I was just paying attention to what he was doing. I followed his move and tried to see the sign after I hit the bag, everything like that, and I tried to still get back, but I was late.”

Immediately after that, Twins second baseman Edouard Julien crossed in front of Carlos Correa and booted a grounder off the bat of Matt Vierling for an infield single -- the first of four consecutive hits to begin the Tigers’ third inning, later followed by a two-out, three-run blast from Báez that put Detroit way ahead.

The Twins have now lost the first two games behind their two best starters -- Sonny Gray and Ryan -- and that consistency and distance they seek in this division still eludes them.