Failures continue: Twins drop to 0-8 with shutout loss to White Sox

At this point, the Twins are looking for anything to get them out of their season-opening slump. Anything to ease the growing mental challenge of pretending nothing is wrong despite the win column remaining frozen at zero.

On Wednesday, the White Sox beat the Twins 3-0 at Target Field, dropping them to 0-8 this season. Phil Hughes tore through Chicago's batting order for four innings, but the White Sox came up with a run in the sixth before Jerry Sands hit a two-run homer in the seventh to put the Twins away.

The Twins have become the 29th team, according to baseball-reference.com, to start a season with eight losses. They are the first to do so since the 2010 Astros.

Now come the mental games. They pretend they are 0-0. They don't look at the standings. They think anything — a big pitch, diving play or finding a penny near second base — will turn things around.

"We're looking for momentum-changers, for sure," manager Paul Molitor said. "Whether it is a defensive play, or Hughes getting out of a jam. Maybe it's a baserunning play. Just something to get you going."

Because the Twins aren't generating anything. They have gone 14 consecutive innings, and 20 of their past 21, without scoring a run. And they went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position Wednesday to drop to 5-for-61 (.082) in that category.

They have to find a way to score runs — if it takes lucky charms, a séance, a bat sacrifice, anything.

"We're just in a bad stretch right now," shortstop Eduardo Escobar said. "It's not coming out the way we want it to come out. We're going to keep working. Just because we are in a slump now doesn't mean we are going to stay in it. For all we know, the next day we will turn it around."

Hughes struck out four his first trip through the lineup, suggesting that any runs the Twins could come up with might hold up. But Chicago lefthander Carlos Rodon was equally dominant.

Hughes worked out of a jam in the fifth inning with runners on second and third and nobody out, striking out Sands and Alex Avila, then getting Austin Jackson to ground out.

Molitor thought that inning could swing momentum the Twins way. It didn't.

Adam Eaton and Jimmy Rollins led off the sixth with singles to put runners on first and third. Hughes got Jose Abreu to hit a sharp grounder to Escobar to start a double play, but Eaton scored the game's first run.

Miguel Sano walked and Trevor Plouffe singled to start the bottom of the inning. Eddie Rosario bunted the runners over, and Escobar was intentionally walked to load the bases for Max Kepler. The rookie looked at two hittable strikes from Rodon before missing an unhittable slider to strike out.

"He lost his aggressiveness early in the count, then had to expand on the slider," Molitor said.

When Kurt Suzuki popped out in foul territory to end the inning, the first boos of the night reverberated around Target Field.

In the seventh, Chicago's Brett Lawrie singled and Sands stroked a 1-2 cut fastball over the center field fence for a two-run homer. That ended Hughes' night. He started fast, faltered late and received no run support.

Eight straight losses.

"It's the story and that's what's happening," Hughes said. "… We have to find a way to block that out and treat tomorrow like it is the first game of the season and not worry about this hole we have dug ourselves."