DENVER — On Friday, the Twins fell victim to a pitcher, Kyle Freeland, whose 10 losses were tied for third-most in the majors. On Saturday, they lost to his teammate, Antonio Senzatela, a starter who has lost a league-leading 13 games.
A series against the Colorado Rockies that looked like it would provide a soft part of the schedule for the Twins has turned into anything but. The Twins lost their second straight game to the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night, this one a 10-6 defeat at Coors Field. With it, the Rockies, who are threatening the 2024 Chicago White Sox for the worst record in Major League Baseball history, won their first series at home all season.
Colorado broke open a tied game in the fifth inning after Zebby Matthews, fresh off the injured list, allowed a pair of hits to the first two batters of the inning, leading to his departure. Brock Stewart was summoned from the bullpen to replace him and after getting two outs, the first pitch he threw to Ezequiel Tovar ended up over the head of a leaping Byron Buxton beyond the center field wall.
The Rockies (24-74) pushed across another pair of runs an inning later and two more in the eighth with their 10-run outburst coming on a day in which the Twins (47-51) did little through the middle innings of the game.
After scoring three runs in the second — Ryan Jeffers doubled, Kody Clemens tripled him home, Carlos Correa’s double scored another run and Matt Wallner collected just his third hit with a runner in scoring position all season to bring in the Twins’ third run — Twins hitters saw fewer than 10 pitches in each of the next four innings.
Senzatela threw eight pitches in the third, seven in the fourth and just six in each of the next two frames. The Twins’ potential opportunities were squashed in two of those innings by double plays.
While the Twins did make some noise in the eighth — Clemens brought home two more runs with a double — their threat came to an end when Correa swung at a Tyler Kinley slider for strike three and in the bottom of the inning, Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman then hit a two-run home run to extend Colorado’s lead again.
Matthews, in his first major league start since landing on the injured list with a shoulder strain in early June, gave up five runs in the loss. The first came in the second inning. Two more came in the third, with Jordan Beck, who collected an infield hit on a ball that appeared to be rolling foul before catcher Ryan Jeffers picked it up, scoring on Ryan McMahon’s game-tying home run. The final two came after his departure, when Stewart gave up the home run that put the Twins down for good.
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