DENVER — The Twins began the second half of their season on Friday evening in Denver with 12 pivotal games left before the July 31 trade deadline, and as they attempt to work their way up in the wild-card standings, a series against the Colorado Rockies — who are on pace to finish with the worst record in Major League Baseball history — looked like a good place to start.
But the Twins would never recover on Friday after starter Chris Paddack allowed extra-base hits to the first four batters he faced. That put them in a four-run hole in an eventual 6-4 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field.
“It’s hard being down four runs before you even get off the mark but all that said, we fought back and didn’t have enough,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We have to do a better job obviously staying in the game and not falling out of the game early.”
The game could have looked different if Rockies (23-74) third baseman Ryan McMahon hadn’t made a leaping snare on a Ty France liner, which would have scored a run and extended the first inning.
But instead of grabbing an early lead, the Twins (47-50) fell into an early hole when Paddack allowed doubles to the first two batters he faced, producing the first run of the game. Jordan Beck, who finished a double shy of the cycle, then tripled home Colorado’s second run and McMahon added on with a two-run home run to center field.
Paddack would walk another batter and allow a single, requiring 34 pitches to get through one inning of work. While the results improved over the course of the rest of his start — he allowed a solo home run to Beck in the second inning but nothing else in his five innings of work — the Twins couldn’t claw their way back.
“I felt like they came out and they were on time for my fastball,” Paddack said. “Normally, that first time through the lineup, I try and establish the fastball and then we make adjustment as needed. They came out and the next thing I know, it’s 2-0 pretty quick.”
Rockies starter Kyle Freeland, aided by some sharp defense behind him, allowed just a run in his six innings of work. That run came on All-Star Byron Buxton’s team-leading 22nd home run of the year. Buxton finished the day with three hits.
But while Freeland, who was 1-10 entering the day, dealt with plenty of traffic in his start, the Twins weren’t able to capitalize on their baserunners. In his last inning of work, the Twins put the first two runners on before striking out three times to end their threat.
“He was trying to get us to chase a lot,” Willi Castro said. “You have to have patience if you want to have good results. He was getting people to chase his offspeed pitches.”
All told, the Twins finished the day 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position, leaving eight men on.
That one hit came in the seventh inning when Castro launched the first pitch off his at-bat out to center field for a homer, bringing home three runs. But though they got within two runs, they were unable to dent the Rockies’ lead further, with Brooks Lee hitting into a double play to end the top of the eighth before the Twins left Ryan Jeffers, who had a career-high four hits in the loss, on base in the ninth.
Eight of the Twins’ 10 hits in the loss came from Buxton, Jeffers and Castro, who were hitting atop the lineup.
“We hit a lot of very hard-hit balls. We hit line drives. Early in the game, really nothing was falling and that’s part of the game,” Baldelli said. “We put the work in (and) didn’t really get the results that we needed.”
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