Bullpen crumbles as strikeout-prone Twins fall 9-7 to Mariners to end four-game winning streak

After the Twins found a lot of zany ways to win games throughout the past week, they found a way to beat themselves Tuesday.

The Twins had a four-run lead entering the eighth inning when they turned the game over to their bullpen. The lead lasted one out. Jovani Moran, the first man out of the bullpen, walked the first two batters he faced and Emilio Pagán surrendered a game-tying homer to Julio Rodríguez.

With the score tied in the ninth inning, Oliver Ortega walked a batter, gave up a bunt single and hit a batter. All three baserunners scored. The Twins' bullpen, which is an area the front office wants to add to at the trade deadline, collapsed in the final two innings in a 9-7 loss at Target Field. The loss snapped a four-game winning streak.

"We had the game in front of us," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "We knew what we needed to do. We just simply didn't do what we needed to do. There was no secret as to the way that went."

Moran, who has one of the higher walk rates in the league, threw only three of his first 11 pitches in the strike zone. After back-to-back walks to open the eighth inning, Cal Raleigh lined an RBI double to left field on an elevated changeup.

Next out of the bullpen door was Pagán, who had allowed four hits and one run across nine innings this month. After a run scored on a groundout, Rodríguez launched a game-tying homer to right field. It was the first homer Pagán yielded since June 26.

"I feel like I've been doing a pretty good job, getting better and better," said Moran, who entered against the top of the Mariners lineup. "I wasn't thinking about the lineup. I just didn't have the best feel with the [fastball]."

Ortega, who was optioned to Class AAA after the game to give the bullpen a fresh arm, entered in the ninth inning to face three lefties. The Mariners loaded the bases without a ball leaving the infield before Eugenio Suárez shot a two-run double past diving third baseman Willi Castro.

Griffin Jax was unavailable after pitching three straight days and Jhoan Duran had pitched in two of the last three days.

"Ortega was definitely the guy in that spot," Baldelli said. "We felt like we had the right players out there for those specific matchups and parts of the lineup. We just have to get the outs."

It was a strange night for the Twins lineup. They needed only five batters to hit for a team cycle and produce a four-run lead against Mariners righthander George Kirby, the same pitcher who tossed seven shutout innings against them last week.

The key against Kirby, really, was just putting the ball in play. Carlos Correa scorched Kirby's second pitch for an opposite-field double. Edouard Julien followed with the first triple of his career to end an eight-pitch at-bat.

Following a strikeout, Max Kepler pulled an RBI single through the right side of the infield. On Kirby's next pitch, Matt Wallner lifted a two-run, 410-foot homer to the right-field seats to complete the team cycle. Their average exit velocity on the four balls they put in play in the first inning was 105.5 mph.

The Twins had a hit on the first seven balls that were struck into fair territory. After Max Kepler led off the third inning with a ground ball single, Castro lined an RBI triple into the right field corner.

The problem for the Twins was how they recorded almost all their outs. They struck out a season-high 18 times. After Castro's triple, they didn't have another hit until Michael A. Taylor homered in the ninth inning. They struck out three times in the first, second, fifth and eighth innings.