Pablo López struggles, Twins lose again to Yankees 8-5

NEW YORK – After six miserable games against the New York Yankees within the past month, the Twins could finally celebrate some good news. They aren’t scheduled to play the Yankees again.

Pablo López, the last Twins pitcher standing between a season series sweep, surrendered seven runs and a career-high six walks in four innings in an 8-5 loss Thursday at Yankee Stadium.

The season series was a one-sided beatdown. The Twins were losing at the end of 51 of their 54 innings against the Yankees throughout their six-game season series, outscored 36-12.

The Twins hold a .619 winning percentage since April 22, the start of their 12-game winning streak, but they never figured out how to beat the team that has tortured them for the last two decades. New York dropped one season series to the Twins in the last 23 years — last season was the exception — but this was its first sweep over the Twins since 2009.

“We have a lot of games in a row coming up and we don’t have time to dwell on anything,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

López, who became the first Twins pitcher to walk six batters in a game since Chris Archer did it twice during the 2022 season, never looked like himself. He hit Yankees catcher Austin Wells with an errant slider in a 0-2 count in the second inning. Two batters later, López left a first-pitch fastball over the heart of the plate and watched Trent Grisham whack it into the right-field seats for a two-run homer. Grisham entered with two hits in 39 at-bats this season.

“Their pitching has been outstanding lately so to score five runs on that pitching staff, it’s outstanding,” López said. “The offense kept battling. I just kept getting in a deeper hole inning after inning. That’s exactly what I should not be doing. It’s on me.”

After Twins catcher Christian Vázquez hit a game-tying homer in the third inning, López responded by walking his first three batters — Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton — in the bottom half of the inning. López entered with 11 walks in 67 innings this season.

All three walks ended up scoring. Gleyber Torres poked a two-strike sinker through the right side of the infield for a two-run double, and Wells followed with a sacrifice fly. A leaping grab from Max Kepler on the warning track prevented the 34-pitch inning from spiraling even further out of control.

“I’ve had games this season I walk away and I’m like, ‘Man, I wonder what could have been different today?’” López said. “It’s pretty obvious. Six walks. Hit by pitch. That’s seven free passes right there against a lineup as good as this one. You’re just giving them fuel.”

López, who had his ERA balloon to 5.45, surrendered two more runs in the fourth inning after Anthony Volpe reached on an infield single and Judge drew a four-pitch walk. Volpe and Judge executed a double steal, and Vázquez’s throw to third base bounced into left field, enabling Volpe to score. Two pitches later, Stanton hit an RBI single up the middle.

BOXSCORE: Yankees 8, Twins 5

The Twins, despite López’s poor start, had their best offensive game against the Yankees. Marcus Stroman lasted only 4⅔ innings. After putting two runners in scoring position with none out in the fifth inning, Carlos Correa hit a sacrifice fly and Max Kepler dropped a ground-rule RBI double down the left-field line on a ball that Judge, the left fielder, inexplicably didn’t try to catch.

Kepler’s double was the Twins’ first hit with a runner in scoring position in their six games against the Yankees, ending a 0-for-25 streak, and he scored from third when Carlos Santana hit a two-out RBI single to right field.

The Twins, down three runs after a 56-minute rain delay at the end of the fifth inning, left two men on base in the sixth and eighth innings. Royce Lewis stood on deck for the game’s final out, unable to step to the plate representing the tying run.