MINNEAPOLIS -- It seems like Josh Donaldson is attempting to will the Twins to a turnaround.

On Thursday night, his game-tying, two-run blast off Aroldis Chapman in the ninth inning set the stage for a dramatic walk-off victory. And for an encore performance on Friday night, he crushed an opposite-field blast in the eighth inning, his second of the game, to again knot things late.

This time, that wasn’t enough to impel his club to a victory. Matt Shoemaker -- newly moved to the bullpen -- allowed two runs in the ninth in a 6-4 loss to the Astros at Target Field.

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Donaldson’s solo blasts in the third and eighth innings gave him 10 homers this season -- of which five have either tied the game or given the Twins the lead. His three blasts in a span of five plate appearances could have been a significant reason why a team that was 2-22 when trailing after seven innings only 48 hours prior could have claimed two straight late comeback victories.

“I think he’s catching fire, is what he’s doing,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Every time he goes up there at this point, I think he’s in a stretch where if you’re looking for something, you feel like something is going to happen every time he goes up to the plate.”

Over his past 11 games, Donaldson is hitting .326 (14-for-43) with five homers, a .767 slugging percentage and a 1.062 OPS. In addition to his pair of homers Friday, the Twins got solo homers from Nelson Cruz and Miguel Sanó to build an early lead against an otherwise stingy José Urquidy, who allowed only four hits -- including three homers -- across seven strong frames.

“[Donaldson] kind of looks like that when he walks to the plate -- he’s there to do some damage, and he’s one swing away from doing some damage,” Baldelli said. “That’s what it feels like when he goes up to the plate right now.”

Once again, the Twins’ bullpen couldn’t hold up its end.

After the relief corps inherited a one-run lead in the sixth inning, Jorge Alcala allowed a game-tying solo homer to Yuli Gurriel. Then Tyler Duffey gave up the go-ahead run without allowing a hit in the seventh inning. Shoemaker, pressed into action for multiple innings, coughed up an RBI double to Martín Maldonado and an RBI single to Michael Brantley in the ninth.

It couldn’t have been the situation the Twins had envisioned, leaving the newly converted Shoemaker out for a second inning of relief in a tie game against, statistically, the best offense in baseball.

But that’s who they had to provide innings in a depleted bullpen, with Baldelli and pitching coach Wes Johnson worried about running out of arms in a possible extra-innings situation. They chose not to turn to a warmed-up Hansel Robles for the ninth inning. That would have left only Alex Colomé available for whatever game remained.

“If we went to Hansel in that inning in ... we probably had about 10 innings of coverage in the game,” Baldelli said. “And we can't put ourselves in a spot where we look up in the 11th inning, and we go, ‘Hey, we're not really sure who we're going to finish.’ We can never allow that to happen.”

It was an imperfect storm borne of the Twins’ brutal injury situation, with two converted starters holding bullpen spots, one of whom, Griffin Jax, was likely unavailable after he threw 51 pitches two days ago. The Twins have no replacements available because they don’t have any room to spare on their 40-man roster.

Rookie right-hander Bailey Ober threw five effective innings of two-run ball, earning another turn in the rotation, before he was pulled from a shortened 73-pitch start, likely due to his lack of innings last season as a result of the Minor League Baseball shutdown. The Twins then had to piece together four innings from there in a back-and-forth game.

As has been the case on the position player side for much of the last several weeks, the depth ran out. And the Astros made Shoemaker and the Twins pay.

“At every point, where we had a decision to make, we make a decision, and immediately, the game shifted on us and the score changed,” Baldelli said. “And then we have to react to that, and therefore the moves can add up at that point.”