Twins fall to Brewers 3-2 as bats remain cold and Louie Varland struggles

MILWAUKEE – Playing under a roof at American Family Field wasn’t enough to warm the Twins offense, which hasn’t homered since Royce Lewis drove a pitch over the wall in the first inning of the season.

The Twins, who have outscored only two other major league teams through their first four games, delivered three hits in their 3-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday, earning their first losing streak of the season. They’ve scored 11 runs in four games and totaled 24 hits.

“You always want to go out there and bang out 10 hits and [pitchers] strike out 10,” said Byron Buxton, who had a single and two lineouts Tuesday. “The nature of it is we have to come out here every day, play baseball and just keep grinding. Don’t panic.”

The Twins rank last in the majors with their one home run while the Chicago White Sox and New York Mets — both winless — are the only teams with fewer runs through their first four games of the season.

Even with only three hits Tuesday, the Twins had opportunities to rally. The Brewers squashed them with their defense. Alex Kirilloff and Byron Buxton opened the fourth inning with back-to-back singles, and Brewers right fielder Jackson Chourio made a sliding catch to rob Max Kepler of another hit. Kirilloff scored the only run of the inning on a sacrifice fly.

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A diving catch by Milwaukee third baseman Oliver Dunn took away a hit from Buxton in the eighth inning, and the Brewers turned a double play after a leadoff walk in the ninth inning.

“Some of those balls that we put into play, some of those are going to find some holes at some point,” Twins Manager Rocco Baldelli said. “If we get a couple doubles, then we’re sitting there happy and something’s going on. But we needed to do more offensively.”

The Brewers, playing in front of an announced sellout crowd of 41,659 in their home opener, had six hits and three runs in four innings against Twins starter Louie Varland, and their bullpen pitched five hitless innings.

Varland yielded four consecutive singles in the second inning, which led to a run when Chourio, a 20-year-old rookie who signed an eight-year, $82 million contract extension before his MLB debut, lifted a low cutter into right field for his first RBI hit in his home ballpark. The rally started when Rhys Hoskins reached on an infield single.

BOXSCORE: Milwaukee 3, Twins 2

Christian Yelich began the third inning with a solo homer to dead center, launching a full-count fastball that sat in the middle of the plate. Later in the inning, Varland hit Hoskins with a two-strike fastball that ran inside, issued a walk to Dunn and surrendered an RBI double to Brice Turang in a two-strike count. Turang, who has three multi-hit performances and six stolen bases in four games, choked up on his bat and slapped an elevated fastball to left field.

“I was throwing too many fastballs,” said Varland, who worked ahead in counts and threw a first-pitch strike to 15 of his 21 batters, but paid the price for giving up too much contact.

In the seventh inning, the Twins loaded the bases without a ball leaving the infield. Carlos Correa and pinch-hitter Manuel Margot drew back-to-back walks to start the frame, and Willi Castro reached on a 10-foot dribbler when Brewers catcher William Contreras committed an error attempting to transfer the ball from his catcher’s mitt to his throwing hand.

Christian Vázquez drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to left field, but Kyle Farmer, pinch-hitting for Edouard Julien against lefty reliever Hoby Milner, struck out on four pitches with the tying run on second base.