Twins blow late lead, lose in 10th to K.C. to fall to 0-6

KANSAS CITY, MO. – It was time for a talk.

Twins manager Paul Molitor addressed his team Sunday following its latest loss, a 4-3, 10-inning backbreaker to the Royals. The Twins will face their fans at Target Field on Monday with a 0-6 record, the worst start in club history.

Molitor's message was predictable but perhaps necessary: Stick to your routines. What has happened is part of the ebb and flow of a season.

"It's hard to tell yourself that when you start the season like this," third baseman Trevor Plouffe said. "As a professional and as grown men, you have to be able to do that. Because the game is like this. If you let it get you down, it is going to eat you alive."

For the second consecutive season, the Twins' resolve is being tested early. They started 1-6 in 2015 before finding their footing, but this start arguably is worse. This team expects to be a playoff threat after having no expectations last year. Now they have to dig out of a hole. According to baseball-reference.com, only three teams since 1901 — the 1974 Pirates, 1995 Reds and 2011 Rays — reached the playoffs after starting the season 0-6.

The Twins lost three games to open last season at Detroit by a combined score of 22-1. This year's start is more concerning. The Twins already have had three one-run losses, giving up the winning runs in the eighth, ninth and 10th innings. They have two two-run losses. They are losing winnable games.

Sunday's loss is probably the most painful. Just as the Twins were preparing to pack their bags for a pleasant trip home, the Royals came alive in the ninth against closer Glen Perkins, who couldn't protect a 3-1 lead.

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Lorenzo Cain delivered a one-out single. Eric Hosmer then laced a pitch toward the left-field corner. Eddie Rosario, who unwisely dived and missed a sinking liner for a triple Friday, left his feet for Homser's drive. And once again he missed, the ball ticking off the tip of his glove. Cain scored to make it 3-2.

Perkins then got two swinging strikes against Kendrys Morales, but Morales was able to recover to lift a sacrifice fly to score Hosmer with the tying run.

"I didn't make the pitches," Perkins said. "That [pitch to Hosmer] was on 0-2. I had Kendrys Morales 0-2. I just couldn't make a pitch to get those guys out. It doesn't have anything to do with Rosario."

Molitor absolved Rosario as well. "You try to win a game," he said. "You try and make a catch. And it turns into a triple."

After the Twins failed to score in the 10th against Wade Davis, Christian Colon drew a walk off Trevor May to start the bottom of the inning. Speedster Terrance Gore entered as a pinch runner. When May's pickoff throw bounced past Byung Ho Park at first, Gore ran all the way to third.

May recovered to get the next two outs without Gore scoring, but on a 2-2 pitch to Cain he bounced a curve in the dirt that deflected off catcher John Ryan Murphy and toward the Royals dugout. Gore sprinted home with the winning run on the walk-off wild pitch.

If Perkins makes a successful pitch, the Twins fly home in a better mood. If Rosario makes those diving catches, the series is different. If May and Kevin Jepsen don't falter, the whole first week is turned around.

The Twins had the Royals on the ropes Sunday. They forced out Opening Day starter Edinson Volquez in the sixth inning after he gave up two runs on eight hits. They got four hits from Eduardo Nunez, tying a career high. They saw Joe Mauer reach base in all five plate appearances.

And Ricky Nolasco pitched seven innings of one-run ball.

And yet they couldn't win.

The Twins are winless because nothing is working on a team that expected to be better than it was a year ago.

"We're going home 0-6, and it stares at you right in the face," Molitor said. "We all get that. You're hoping with the way our year went last year, our spring training [this year], people would have expectations and all that.

"You want to get out to a better start. We have to take a step back and try to keep things in perspective a little bit. A couple games go your way, you're feeling a little bit different than the 0-6."