LOS ANGELES —  When Mookie Betts offered at Griffin Jax’s 1-2 pitch with two outs in the ninth inning on Wednesday, it looked like that would be the end of the game, the end of a win — and a series — that the Twins could head back to Minnesota feeling good about.

First base umpire Emil Jimenez had other thoughts. Betts checked his swing, the umpire ruled, extending the at-bat. Gifted new life, Betts barely beat out an infield single, keeping the Dodgers’ hopes alive.

That at-bat was the first in a series of events and decisions that quickly led to a gut-wrenching 4-3 walk-off loss for the Twins, who need to win to avoid being broken up at next week’s trade deadline, to the Dodgers on Wednesday afternoon.

With Betts on first, manager Rocco Baldelli made the decision to intentionally walk Shohei Ohtani. While Jax said he would’ve liked the opportunity to face him, Baldelli was not going to let the Dodgers (60-43) superstar, who had already homered in the game, beat the Twins (49-53), especially with Teoscar Hernández behind him already out of the game in place of light-hitting Esteury Ruiz, who had entered as a pinch runner.

The intentional walk pushed the game-tying run into scoring position.

“Ultimately is there a right answer?” Baldelli asked. “For me, the right answer was we’re going to pitch to Ruiz and go get him … (and) not be afraid to make a decision and Jax is one of the best relievers in baseball so I’m going to bet on Jax to go out there, dial it in and pitch to Ruiz.”

Except it didn’t work out as planned.

Jax allowed a walk to Ruiz to load the bases and the next batter, Freddie Freeman, after falling behind 0-2 earlier in the at-bat, hit a ball towards left fielder Harrison Bader that he dove for but could not snag, allowing the tying and game-winning run to score.

And the unraveling all started with the missed call during the Betts at-bat.

“It’s frustrating,” Jax said. “I just feel like that’s kind of a representation of my season so far where it’s so close but just not putting all the pieces together to get that consistency day in, day out. I definitely feel like he went.”

But the Twins didn’t get the call, dropping a game that had been a pitchers’ duel between starters Chris Paddack and Tyler Glasnow, who each allowed a solo home run — Paddack to Ohtani and Glasnow to Royce Lewis — but nothing else in their efforts.

The Twins, after falling behind in the seventh inning by a run, took advantage of a pair of walks to lead off the eighth inning, stealing a combined four bases in the inning, which helped lead to a pair of runs and a lead they held until the dramatic ninth inning.

“Sometimes you’re going to play your butts off and you’re going to lose the game ultimately but that was one of those games where sometimes you lose and you feel even more proud sometimes of the way your guys played and handled themselves,” Baldelli said.

Twins place Festa on IL

David Festa woke up with right shoulder soreness on Tuesday morning after starting on Monday night in Los Angeles. A day later, the Twins put the starter on the injured list and sent him for magnetic resonance imaging — they expect to know more about his status in the coming days. It’s another blow for a rotation that is already dealing with injuries to Pablo López (shoulder) and Bailey Ober (hip).

Though Festa is now on the injured list — Travis Adams was recalled to take his spot on the active roster on Wednesday — the Twins are still planning on having Ober make a second rehab start on Friday with the Triple-A Saints, rather than changing their plans for him.

Ober threw four scoreless innings in his first rehab start but Baldelli said that the mechanical things that pitching coach Pete Maki had been talking to with Ober were still “a work in progress.”

“I think this is a good opportunity for Bailey to actually implement some of the mechanical work that we’ve been talking about and he’s been working on,” Baldelli said.

Briefly

The Twins have agreed to a deal with their first-round draft pick, Marek Houston, among others. … The Twins have Thursday off before returning to action on Friday to host the Washington Nationals.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s order seeking to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional, affirming a lower-court decision that blocked its enforcement nationwide.

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The ruling from a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after Trump’s plan was also blocked by a federal judge in New Hampshire. It brings the issue one step closer to coming back quickly before the Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit blocks the Trump administration from enforcing the order that would deny citizenship to children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily.

“The district court correctly concluded that the Executive Order’s proposed interpretation, denying citizenship to many persons born in the United States, is unconstitutional. We fully agree,” the majority wrote.

The State Department said Wednesday that it has approved $322 million in proposed weapons sales to Ukraine to enhance its air defense capabilities and provide armored combat vehicles, coming as the country works to fend off escalating Russian attacks.

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The potential sales, which the department said were notified to Congress, include $150 million for the supply, maintenance, repair and overhaul of U.S. armored vehicles, and $172 million for surface-to-air missile systems.

The approvals come weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a pause on other weapons shipments to Ukraine to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a move that caught the White House by surprise. President Donald Trump then made an abrupt change in posture, pledging publicly earlier this month to continue to send weapons to Ukraine.

“We have to,” Trump said. “They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now. We’re going to send some more weapons — defensive weapons primarily.”

Trump recently endorsed a plan to have European allies buy U.S. military equipment that can then be transferred to Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how the latest proposed sales related to that arrangement.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has provided more than $67 billion in weapons and security assistance to Kyiv.

Since Trump came back into office, his administration has gone back and forth about providing more military aid to Ukraine, with political pressure to stop U.S. funding of foreign wars coming from the isolationists inside the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill.

Over the course of the war, the U.S. has routinely pressed for allies to provide air defense systems to Ukraine. But many are reluctant to give up the high-tech systems, particularly countries in Eastern Europe that also feel threatened by Russia.

NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay more than $220 million to the federal government to restore federal research money that was canceled in the name of combating antisemitism on campus, the university announced Wednesday.

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Under the agreement, the Ivy League school will pay the $200 million settlement over three years to the federal government, the university said. It will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty, acting University President Claire Shipman said.

The administration pulled the funding, because of what it described as the university’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.

Columbia then agreed to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university’s student disciplinary process and adopting a new definition of antisemitism. Wednesday’s agreement codifies those reforms, Shipman said.