Orioles undone by one inning in 6-4 loss (with quotes)

MINNESOTA - The unraveling happens so quickly and with such force that it creates sparks. Players should be required to wear protective goggles.

The Orioles took a two-run lead into the third inning tonight and watched the Twins bat around while scoring six times, and the final series before the All-Star break began with a 6-4 loss before an announced crowd of 19,706 at Target Field.

When is it going to get better? Can it get better?

The Orioles are a season-worst five games below .500 at 40-45, including a 15-29 record on the road, and are tied with the Blue Jays for last place in the American League East. They've lost four in a row and six of seven, and there's no place to turn for comfort.

The offense only works in spurts and key players remain in cold spells. The rotation can't produce quality starts and it's most dependable pitcher in the first half, right-hander Dylan Bundy, has gone five innings or less and allowed at least five runs in three of his last four outings. Breakdowns in fundamentals are happening at a more alarming rate on a team that prides itself on doing the opposite.

Bundy retired six of the first seven batters he faced and was handed a 2-0 lead, but he hit Jason Castro leading off the bottom of the third inning and the Orioles were the ones in pain.

Byron Buxton singled and Robbie Grossman reached on a fielder's choice with one out to load the bases. Miguel Sanó delivered an RBI single, Max Kepler moved the Twins ahead with a two-run single and Eduardo Escobar followed with a two-run triple.

Bam, bam, bam. The Orioles couldn't do anything to stop it.

Eddie Rosario walked and Jorge Polanco's fielder's choice grounder plated another run. Castro batted again and flied out on Bundy's 32nd pitch of the inning.

Bundy had six runs on his line and his ERA swelled to 4.42.

One of the key plays in the inning goes down as a fielder's choice. Trey Mancini fielded Grossman's grounder and tried to get the force at second instead of taking the easy out at first. Buxton was safe, mostly because he's faster than the speed of sound, and the Twins had the bases loaded with one out.

Three straight hits followed that produced five runs. We don't know whether the inning would have played out differently, but at least there would have been two outs and first base open.

The Orioles failed to execute two rundowns in Milwaukee. Any defensive glitch is going to stand out.

Credit goes to Bundy for completing five innings at 95 pitches. Richard Bleier was warming in the third. And all of the damage was confined to the third, but it was significant.

Bundy allowed six runs and five hits and is carrying a 4.33 ERA into the break. He's posted an 8.53 ERA in his last five starts. He had 11 quality starts in his first 13 games, one in his last five.

Bundy has logged 108 innings, 1 2/3 short of his 2016 total. The Orioles will move him to the back of the rotation coming out of the break to provide additional rest.

Mark Trumbo hit his 13th home run in the top of the second inning to put the Orioles ahead 2-0. They weren't the team trailing in the early innings. Lead, glorious lead.

Adam Jones led off by reaching on Sanó's error. Sanó, who moved across the diamond with Joe Mauer sidelined by back soreness, dropped a pretty routine throw. The ball was low, but it didn't touch the dirt until bouncing off his glove.

Trumbo followed with a towering fly ball to center field off that kept carrying until it cleared the fence, a distance estimated at 412 feet. As it landed, Trumbo was 7-for-20 with three home runs in his last seven games.

Mancini led off the fourth inning with a double, Hyun Soo Kim snapped an 0-for-15 spell with a single and Paul Janish collected his third RBI this season with a ground ball to reduce the lead to 6-3.

Mancini had another leadoff double in the sixth and later scored on Kim's sacrifice fly to the left field warning track. The Orioles were down 6-4 with nine more outs in regulation.

Up again with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh, Mancini grounded to short against reliever Tyler Duffey. Mancini led the American League with a .408 average with runners in scoring position.

An earlier bases-loaded opportunity in the top of the third also fizzled when Trumbo grounded out, making what transpired in the bottom half more frustrating.

Welington Castillo opened the eighth with a bloop single, but the Orioles stranded a runner. Johnny Giavotella, pinch-hitting for Janish, struck out looking in his first major league plate appearance since Aug. 14, 2016 in Cleveland.

Giavotella stayed in the game at second base and Jonathan Schoop moved to shortstop for the first time in the majors. Schoop last played shortstop in the Arizona Fall League in 2013 after making 20 starts for Triple-A Norfolk.

The four runs tonight were one more than the Orioles scored in the three-game series in Milwaukee. The six runs they gave up in third inning ultimately decided the outcome.

Trumbo on game: "Collectively, we just didn't play well enough and we haven't for a while. We've got to do a better job out there."

Trumbo on collective issues: "Yeah, we're not playing to our capabilities all the way around. Starting pitching, hitting, defense. We need to do a much better job and we need to do it quickly."

Trumbo on whether there's sense of urgency: "Yeah, we've been playing lousy and no one's going to give you any room to breathe. We better get with the program."

Trumbo on how team can snap out of it: "You've got to play fundamental baseball. You have to get good starting pitching, you have to get some timely hitting. Guys getting on base, playing nice defense. Those are the ingredients to a good ballclub."

Manager Buck Showalter on what happened in third inning: "We pitched well other than that. We pitched seven good innings. They didn't have to play in the bottom. But that one inning was a big inning for them. It's one of those things where errors don't show up, but we just threw the ball to the wrong base a couple times. Dylan, I know he'll kick himself there. There was a game there to be won. Berríos is a good pitcher, but we had him where we needed to get him. But they've been pitching well out of the bullpen. They did again tonight."

Showalter on what extended inning does to young pitcher: "Example that he pitched five innings. He didn't implode. Dylan pitches beyond his years. He's a smart young man with common sense. That was a frustrating inning for him because a couple of sequences didn't fall how they should have, but other than that, take away that one inning, you like the result. But unfortunately you can't take it away. And it was a big crooked number. He's been pretty good about that. In fact, to come back and finish that inning, he was a pitch away from getting out of there and not being able to give us five innings, which allowed our bullpen to shut them down and get back in the game."

Showalter on having scoring opportunities: "It was better, it was better. And that's a good pitcher we were facing and a good bullpen. We created some good opportunities for ourselves, but just couldn't finish it off. We were a big hit away. We haven't been saying much lately. Today was a little break from that."

Showalter on whether Buxton's speed made throw to second a bad decision: "It's just a poor decision on our part. Just go to first base and take the out. With the lead that he's getting and where we have to play the hitter, you know you're going to have a hard time getting him out there. But the decision because of his foot speed, you don't throw the ball to second. But he's been playing a great first base for us and he made a couple of great stops and had some big hits for us to set up some innings, so without him we're not in that ballgame."

Bundy on third inning: "I was trying to go in to Kepler, trying to go away from Buxton and I missed my spot by a foot or two and they made me pay for it. I made a good pitch to Polanco and he was able to get to it and hit it for a triple."

Bundy on whether he felt good to get through the inning: "No, not at all. That was horrible. You give up six runs in one inning, that's kind of pathetic. You've got to limit those and that was kind of unacceptable."

Bundy on his first half: "It wasn't the ending I wanted, but it's a healthy first half and I'm throwing the ball well, but sometimes it's not going where I need to. Got to work on that in the second half and that's what I'll do."

Bundy on whether poor location hurting him last five starts: "Yeah, sometimes I leave pitches over the middle of the plate and the last five starts it seems like they're capitalizing and not missing them this go around. I've just got to make better pitches. That's all."