Twins bashed by Nationals 12-3. Players hold meeting; manager Rocco Baldelli unhappy with hitting.

WASHINGTON – After the Twins were blown out for the second time in three days, losing 12-3 to the Washington Nationals for their seventh consecutive loss, there was a players-only team meeting inside the visitors’ clubhouse.

Players were mum about what was said during the meeting, but it was only eight days ago when the Twins completed a stretch where they won 17 of 20 games. Now they’re on the franchise’s longest losing streak in six years.

“It’s not fun to be in this spot,” Carlos Correa said. “It’s not where we want to be. It’s not what we work or strive for. We’ve just got to be better. I think everybody here knows it.”

It’s been a horrendous week for the Twins offense, which has been outscored 45-12 during the seven-game skid. Manager Rocco Baldelli pointed to the lack of adjustments the Twins made against Nationals rookie lefthander Mitchell Parker.

After the Twins scored a run in the second inning — Kyle Farmer hit an RBI single on a ground ball that deflected off the third base bag — Parker threw only 10 fastballs to his next 11 batters. The Twins tallied four strikeouts, one baserunner and one ball that left the infield.

“The guy just stood out there and threw off-speed pitches for like four straight innings,” Baldelli said. “We didn’t do anything about it. We continued to wave at them and look for fastballs, which today, they weren’t coming, especially for the first five, six innings. In this stretch of games where we’ve been struggling, that’s been a common theme.

“You can’t take three, four, five innings to adjust to what the starting pitcher is doing to you. That’s not quality professional baseball.”

During the losing streak, the Twins held a lead in only four of the 63 innings. Their one-run lead in the second inning Monday lasted only two batters after Pablo López surrendered a two-run homer to Luis García Jr.

“We didn’t hold it for five minutes,” Baldelli said.

It was a game in which everything went wrong. López allowed seven runs in five innings, matching the most runs he’s allowed in a start during his Twins career. Catcher Christian Vázquez allowed two runs to score in the sixth inning on a throwing error, attempting to throw behind a runner at third base, hitting him in the back and watching the ball roll into left field.

Before the Twins scored their first run, Byron Buxton was aggressively waved home on a Willi Castro double to the left field wall. Buxton was two steps past third base when Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams, standing just outside the infield dirt, received the throw from the outfield. Buxton, as fast as anybody in baseball, was thrown out by more than 10 feet.

“I’ve seen a lot of streaky baseball,” Baldelli said. “We all have. This is next-level stuff.”

BOXSCORE: Washington 12, Twins 3

The Twins are making it nearly impossible to win games with their current offense. The one time they scored more than three runs during their losing streak, all four runs came in the ninth inning in a game they trailed by 11 runs.

“We have to play better baseball, period,” Baldelli said, “but we’re going to have to string together way more good at-bats to make it happen.”

After Correa hit a two-run homer off Parker in the sixth inning, on a curveball, the Twins didn’t have another baserunner touch third base, prompting their players-only chat.

“It’s easy to be fun guys, be around when things are going good, when everything you’re hitting is falling and you’re just winning games,” Correa said. “When the tough times come, that’s when you know who people are. It’s important to talk things through.”