Swept again: Twins streak of playoff misery continues with 3-1 loss to Houston

The Twins at least are getting more efficient in their playoff retreats. They didn’t even make it to October this time.

Barely 70 hours after celebrating their American League Central championship and reiterating their World Series ambitions, the Twins packed up for an extra-long winter after falling meekly to the Astros, 3-1 at Target Field. Minnesota, held to only four hits on Tuesday, managed just three a day later, handing a team that finished the pandemic season with a losing record its ticket to the AL Division Series in Los Angeles.

The Twins, meanwhile, will begin their annual reckoning, trying to figure out how such a talented, confident regular-season club can turn into bread pudding in the postseason. The Twins, eliminated before two other first-round series even started, have lost an inconceivable 18 consecutive postseason games dating back to 2004, and 13 consecutive playoff games at home. Yes, after pursing home-field advantage so robustly over the past couple of weeks, they remained winless (0-5) in the postseason at Target Field.

“It was a tough year with an unexpected ending,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We went out there yesterday and went out there today and didn’t get the job done.

“It was a tough year in a lot of ways. You could be talking about the team that wins the World Series and the other 29 teams. The year took a lot out of a lot of people. But I’m sure we’re all going to learn and to grow with what happened.

“We put everything into it we had, but it was not enough in this series.”

Baseball’s playoff format changed this season, but the results appeared identical to the: The Twins’ offense disappeared yet again on Wednesday, and the pitching was good — but not perfect. Jose Berrios retired the first 11 hitters he faced, and surrendered only two hits, one of them a normally routine fourth-inning ground ball by Kyle Tucker that was perfectly placed against the Twins’ shift. It reached the outfield, allowing Michael Brantley to score. Berrios was removed, apparently unhappily, after throwing only 75 pitches in five innings.

Cody Stashak relieved, and retired six of the seven hitters he faced — but the exception earned him the loss. Carlos Correa hammered a slider on the outside corner about 430 feet, onto the tarp above the wall in right-center. That broke the tie, and perhaps the Twins’ will.

Minnesota’s lone run came in the fifth, on a two-out double by Nelson Cruz. Marwin Gonzalez, who had reached on an infield hit, scored the Twins’ lone run, but Luis Arraez was thrown out at the plate trying to give the Twins a second run.

“We didn’t have a ton of baserunners, and when we did, we didn’t get them home,” Baldelli said. “We needed to have more good at-bats.”

The Twins failed to hit a home run for their fifth consecutive game, a streak of 47 consecutive innings that is the longest since the final four games of the 2015 season and the first two of 2016.

The game ended in an especially painful way: Former Twin Ryan Pressly retired all three hitters in the ninth, a 97-mph fastball for a called third strike on Jorge Polanco sending the Twins home early once more.

“The Astros came right at us,” Baldelli said. “They threw fastballs. They threw fastballs, and we didn’t make the adjustments.

“We’re not going to make excuses for not scoring runs. We still had a good lineup out there. But as far as having our entire group together, we didn’t have our entire group together for what seemed like the whole season. But sometimes teams don’t have their entire groups together and they still do well in the playoffs.

“We still had guys who could have gone out there and won those games. Our guys need to walk out of this clubhouse with their heads held high. We’re going to try to do this better the next time around.”

Twins left fielder Eddie Rosario was ejected for arguing balls and strikes in the sixth inning by plate umpire Manny Gonzalez.

“I wish Rosy had been given more leeway in an important game,” Baldelli said. “Obviously, we want Rosy in the game. That being said, I don’t think the umpires were a factor in the series. We lost because the Astros outplayed us.”