Twins and Taj Bradley get off to a rough start, fall 10-5 to Yankees

The Twins bashed 29 hits and scored 21 runs over their last three games, and they have only one win to show for it.

So it goes when the Twins are playing the New York Yankees.

Taj Bradley gave up seven runs in four innings Wednesday night, matching the most runs he has allowed in a game this season for the fourth time, and the Twins couldn’t erase a five-run deficit in a 10-5 loss at Target Field.

“We couldn’t hold them down,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli lamented.

Even when the Twins look like they’re doing something right against the Yankees, it leads to the wrong result. The Yankees own a 111-44 regular-season record against the Twins since 2002, a ridiculous .716 winning percentage, and have handed the Twins 11 losses in their last 13 meetings.

To be fair, the Twins haven’t done much right in months. They have a 4-12 record in September, and they’ve lost 10 of their last 11 series. With 10 games remaining, they’re four losses from reaching their first 90-loss season since 2016.

BOXSCORE: New York Yankees 10, Twins 5

New York sent all nine of its batters to the plate in a five-run fourth inning. Paul Goldschmidt and Jasson Domínguez hit back-to-back doubles off Bradley before four consecutive hitters reached base with two outs.

Trent Grisham punctuated the rally with a three-run homer, depositing a curveball in a 1-2 count over the right-field wall. Bradley thought Grisham was looking for the pitch, which spun to the bottom of the strike zone. It was Grisham’s second homer of the game after he hit a 432-foot solo homer in the previous inning.

“I just feel like I was falling behind in counts after the first time through the order and just not prioritizing the first-pitch strike,” Bradley said. “I feel like I was trying to do too much. All those pitches started out of the zone, especially some of my fastballs getting away from me.”

Ben Rice followed with a double, and Aaron Judge lined a first-pitch single to left field. With runners on the corners, Bradley stumbled during his pitching delivery, committing a balk and allowing Rice to score.

Bradley, acquired from Tampa Bay in a trade for Griffin Jax, gave up 15 runs in 14⅔ innings in three starts against the Yankees this year.

The Twins cut into the Yankees’ five-run lead with a three-run fifth inning. With two runners on base and two outs, Luke Keaschall dropped an RBI single into center field. Keaschall, a 23-year-old rookie, has reached base in 40 of the first 44 games to begin his major league career.

James Outman followed with a walk before Brooks Lee hit a two-run single on a line drive that deflected off leaping shortstop José Caballero’s glove. Lee’s hit knocked Yankees starter Luis Gil, a former Twins minor leaguer who was traded for Jake Cave in 2018, out of the game.

Gil shouted into his glove as he walked off the mound. He permitted nine hits and five runs, four earned, in 4⅔ innings. The Twins scored two runs in the second inning after Royce Lewis lined an RBI single to center and Lee scored on a wild pitch.

It was just the second time this season, in nine starts, that Gil allowed more than two runs in an outing.

“We mixed in some good at-bats,” Baldelli said. “It felt like almost every guy in the lineup had a good swing or two. Probably could have scored a couple more runs than we even did.”

The Yankees added three runs in the final two innings. Ryan McMahon hit an RBI single off Cole Sands in the eighth, after Sands hit Domínguez with a pitch, and the Yankees fans in the announced crowd of 20,206 cheered loudly when Cody Bellinger belted a two-run homer off Génesis Cabrera in the ninth.

Twins outfielder Matt Wallner left Wednesday’s game in the fifth inning because of a back spasm. He will be re-evaluated Friday.