Twins fall to Orioles 11-3 for third straight loss as pitching woes continue

BALTIMORE – Let's start with the positives: Byron Buxton drove in a run with his first triple in more than a year, then ran down Ryan O'Hearn's 410-foot fly ball, making a spectacular leaping catch while colliding with the center field wall. Even better, he kicked with his right leg while doing so, thus protecting his surgically repaired right knee from injury.

Also: Ryan Jeffers singled and doubled, his fourth multi-hit game of the road trip.

Not much else went right for Chris Paddack and the Twins, who lost their third straight game, sixth in a row to the Orioles, 11-3 at Camden Yards.

Paddack's pitches were hammered by the Orioles' ferocious young lineup arguably even worse than Louie Varland's the night before. The defending AL East champions, who became the first American League team to reach 100 runs for the season, pummeled 12 different balls more than 100 mph around the diamond, nine of them against Paddack, whose ERA now stands at 8.36 — identical to Varland's.

The result was a three-run second inning and four more in the third, ending the suspense rather early. Yes, Buxton's sacrifice-his-body catch was in service to keeping the Twins within seven runs.

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Gunnar Henderson launched a first-pitch slider into the picnic area in right field in the second inning, the Rookie of the Year's fifth home run of the season. Jordan Westburg's own two-run blast the following inning traveled 404 feet over the left-field wall, his fourth. And Ryan O'Hearn connected in the eighth inning against Jay Jackson, a 395-foot fly ball that Buxton leapt for again, but couldn't reach when a front-row fan snagged it instead.

The Orioles piled up 12 hits and nine runs while striking out only twice against Paddack, who to his credit helped preserve the bullpen by pitching into the sixth inning.

The Twins, meanwhile, couldn't match the Orioles' firepower, not against second-year righthander Grayson Rodriguez, who in four starts this season, has yet to allow more than two runs. Rodriguez needed only 23 pitches to retire the Twins' entire lineup the first time through, with a pair of double plays snuffing any hope the Twins had of matching Baltimore's quick start.

BOXSCORE: Baltimore 11, Twins 3

Rodriguez didn't record a strikeout the first time through the order, but Minnesota still managed to whiff 10 times, reaching double figures for the 10th time this season.

In an oddity, six catchers took part in the game, with Christian Vázquez and James McCann behind the plate, Jeffers and Adley Rutschman serving as designated hitters, and Baltimore's David Bañuelos and the Twins' Jair Camargo each making their major-league debuts as pinch-hitters late in the game.

Bañuelos, who came up through the Twins' system before signing with the Orioles last winter, flew out to end the eighth inning, while Camargo drew a leadoff walk in the ninth and scored the night's final run on Jose Miranda's single.