Jose Altuve drove in the go-ahead run with a single in the 10th inning after Yordan Alvarez tied it with a two-run homer in the ninth and the Houston Astros rallied from an early six-run deficit to beat the Minnesota Twins 9-7 Sunday at Target Field.
"It's not one that you're gonna have fully digested at this point," Manager Rocco Baldelli said after the game. "You're gonna have to have some little bit of thick skin. You're gonna have to kind of just weather it and deal with it. Some losses are different than other losses. This is going to be a tough one that's gonna bother, it's gonna bother a lot of people in our clubhouse.
The Twins led 7-1 after four innings, but the Astros came all the way back by scoring twice in the ninth off Twins reliever Griffin Jax to tie it at 7.
"There's no doubt about it, and I can't think that we're wrong for thinking that it's a game that we should win a game that we need to win regardless of how it played out out there," Baldelli says. "Some of that doesn't matter. We got to find a way to win a game like this when we've given ourselves a nice cushion, played really good baseball to get to the point where we have that 7-1 lead."
Twins starter Chris Paddack left with the lead, but only went four innings, giving up 3 earned runs on 7 hits. Baldelli said Paddack's early exit really taxed the already taxed Twins' bullpen less than two weeks into the season.
"We need our starters not only to go vie, we need our starters to go five, six or even seven innings in these games," Baldelli explains. "We're going to get those starts, but we haven't gotten probably quite enough of them. But that's baseball. You're gonna go through periods where you still have to pull together, win games with the bullpen. We have a good bullpen."
PREVIEW: Minnesota Twins (3-6) vs. Kansas City Royals (4-5)
Kansas City, Missouri; Monday, 6:40 p.m. (6:00 p.m. Pregame on WCCO Radio, 102.9 FM and the Audacy App (in-market restrictions apply).
PITCHING PROBABLES: Twins: Simeon Woods Richardson (0-0, 4.50 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, five strikeouts); Royals: Michael Lorenzen (0-1, 5.06 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, seven strikeouts)
BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Royals -122, Twins +101; over/under is 8 1/2 runs
BOTTOM LINE: The Minnesota Twins take on the Kansas City Royals after Matt Wallner's four-hit game on Sunday.
Kansas City went 86-76 overall and 45-36 at home last season. The Royals averaged 8.3 hits per game in the 2024 season with 2.9 extra base hits per game.
Minnesota went 82-80 overall and 39-42 on the road last season. The Twins averaged 8.3 hits per game last season while batting a collective .246.
INJURIES: Royals: Dairon Blanco: 10-Day IL (achilles), Kyle Wright: 15-Day IL (shoulder), James McArthur: 15-Day IL (elbow), Alec Marsh: 15-Day IL (shoulder)
Twins: Brock Stewart: 15-Day IL (hamstring), Brooks Lee: 10-Day IL (back), Royce Lewis: 10-Day IL (hamstring), Michael Tonkin: 15-Day IL (shoulder)
The Associated Press contributed to this story.