Horrid start, familiar finish as Twins beaten again by Astros

The Twins' 2023 schedule was released on Wednesday, and included some terrible news: The Astros are on it again.

Trey Mancini capped a four-run first inning with a three-run blast into the Crawford Boxes in left field Thursday, and Houston finished off a six-game sweep of the season series by handing the Twins their sixth consecutive loss, 6-3 at Minute Maid Park.

It's the eighth time in team history that the Twins have gone winless in at least six games against an opponent, and the first time since 2014, when the Angels took all seven games. But rare is a stretch of domination as complete as this one; the Twins were outscored 36-11 in the six games and led at the end of exactly one of the 54 innings, the first inning back on May 11 at Target Field.

"They're one of the best teams in baseball," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli acknowledged, but said he saw signs of life his in team, too. "We saw some solid at-bats. Hit a couple of balls off the top of the wall in left field. Had some opportunities to stay in the game, even win the game. We were trying to claw back and we couldn't get there."

He's got a point, this was the least lopsided game of the season series. The Twins were outhit 60-37 and outhomered 8-1 in the six games, with their lone home run lending a brief moment of hope. The reeling Twins have lost six consecutive games for the first time since Aug. 25-21, 2020.

Jorge Polanco hit the homer, driving a fastball from Luis Garcia into the seats in right field, the team's first home run since last Friday.

But the Astros didn't take long to take control, as usual. Jose Altuve led off the first inning with a double against Chris Archer, and Yuli Gurriel moved him up with an infield hit. Altuve scored on a double play, but the Astros simply reloaded, with Alex Bregman and Christian Vazquez collecting hits in front of Mancini. He unloaded on a changeup, and the Twins were behind for good.

"I'll just say this: This is not the start we wanted to get off to today, and that's on me," said Archer, who has started eight consecutive Twins losses and hasn't earned a victory since June 25. "I expect myself to get out of that inning with a lot less damage. That's the game. We made an adjustment in the second inning, but it was a little too late."

By comparison to the near-unhittable starts by Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez the two previous days, Garcia was a far more human pitcher to face, and the Twins took advantage with three runs before he departed after five innings. Nick Gordon took advantage of a ball that bounced past center fielder Jake Myers in the second inning to run out his team-high fourth triple of the season, and he immediately scored on Garcia's wild pitch.

In the fifth, Gary Sanchez missed a home run in the left-field corner by about 2 feet, and settled for a double. Gilberto Celestino singled him up a base, and Sanchez scored the Twins' final run of the night on Luis Arraez's sacrifice fly.

"The ball's just not bouncing our way," Archer said with a shrug.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, with no leads to protect in nearly a week, used his late-inning relieving corps despite the deficit, and Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax and Jorge Lopez each contributed a scoreless inning. "They hadn't been used in awhile, so we figured we'd get them into the game," Baldelli said. Trevor Megill surrendered the final run, on an RBI double by Jeremy Pena that scored Bregman, in the eighth.

It was a disappointing visit to his former home park for Twins shortstop Carlos Correa, who after receiving his 2021 AL Championship ring on Tuesday, went 1-for-11 with four strikeouts over the three days.

"He's made for the spotlight, so I think it's just three games where he just missed some pitches," Baldelli said. "He was right on a few of the pitches."

But against these Astros, it didn't matter.