Baserunning blunders, lack of clutch pitching exposes Twins in 7-5 loss to Padres

The Minnesota Twins showed why they aren't taken seriously as overall contenders for a World Series Tuesday night, committing costly baserunning decisions and imploding on the mound as the San Diego Padres won 7-5 at Petco Park.

The Padres scored six combined runs in the seventh and eighth innings, giving the Twins their third consecutive loss and taking the first two games of the three-game series.

Related: Zebby Matthews dealt first MLB loss as Twins lose to Padres, 5-3

The Cleveland Guardians won in extra innings against the New York Yankees in the Bronx, increasing the American League Central lead on the Twins and Kansas City Royals — who lost to the Los Angeles Angels — to 3.5 games.

The Padres struck first after Jackson Merrill doubled with two outs in the bottom of the second and David Peralta singled to center to drive Merrill home against Twins starter Bailey Ober.

Minnesota responded in the top of the fourth, as Carlos Santana led off the inning with a double to center and Ryan Jeffers hit his 20th homer of the season to left, giving the Twins a 2-1 lead.

The Twins threatened to blow the game open in the top of the fifth inning, as Max Kepler singled, Austin Martin walked and Manuel Margot singled. Royce Lewis hit a sacrifice fly to left that scored Kepler, but there was miscommunication between Padres shortstop Tyler Wade and third baseman Manny Machado, as Wade let the throw skip in without anyone at the third base bag as Machado appeared to be setting up for a throw home.

Martin, who slid into third on the play, didn't hesitate and immediately got up and started to sprint towards home — only for him to be caught dead in the water and tagged out by a mile as the ball remained in play.

Santana then grounded out to end the inning.

The Twins committed yet another mental lapse on the bases in the following inning, as José Miranda was picked off by Padres southpaw pitcher Bryan Hoeing.

Ober was cruising until the bottom of the seventh inning, as Cronenworth doubled to lead of the inning and Machado slammed his 20th home run of the season to center, tying the game.

Griffin Jax then came in to relieve Ober, who left the game with yet another quality start: 6-plus innings (without recording an out), 4 hits, 3 runs and 5 strikeouts. Ober hasn't pitched a non-quality start since June 9, running his streak to 11 games.

The Twins offense wasn't done though, as Lewis led off the eighth with a single, Santana singled and Jeffers singled to bring Miranda up with the bases loaded and nobody out for the second time in the game. However, Miranda hit a popup into short center for the first out but Christian Vázquez singled down the left field line to drive in Lewis and Santana.

There's a saying many are familiar with though: "bad things happen in threes."

With plenty of credit given to left fielder Jurickson Profar for hustling to the ball and throwing across his body to Machado at third, Jeffers decided to go from first to third on the play and was tagged out, marking the third out the Twins made on the basepaths. Castro then decided to bunt with two outs and Vázquez at second to end the inning.

That would be it for the Twins' bats, heading into the bottom of the frame with a 5-3 lead.

Steven Okert replaced Jax for Minnesota on the mound and some former Twins got revenge on their old team. Donovan Solano and Luis Arraez each singled with two strikes to lead off the inning, setting up a three-run home run by Profar (20) to take the lead for good.

Cronenworth later singled against Okert and Bogaerts doubled his teammate in against Twins right-hander Ronny Henriquez to make it 7-5.

The Twins and Padres will do it again Wednesday night, with first pitch scheduled for 5:40 p.m. CT. Minnesota will send out rookie Simeon Woods Richardson (4-3, 3.77 ERA) to salvage a game in the series against San Diego's starter Matt Waldron (7-10, 4.29 ERA).