MINNEAPOLIS — If Mariners lefty Ariel Miranda was overdue for a clunker, Seattle’s 6-2 loss Thursday afternoon to the Minnesota Twins certainly qualifies.
Miranda entered the day on a run of six starts in which he’d allowed two or fewer runs. That tied for the longest such streak in the majors this season.
He’d given up two or fewer runs in 10 starts overall. Only Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, with 11, had more.
So what happens?
Miranda (6-3) gave up two homers and five runs in the first inning and another run (on another homer) before exiting after just four innings. He lost for the first time since April 22.
“Today was not my day,” he said. “I didn’t have any command of my pitches. My velocity today, I knew I didn’t have it. And my command (on the off-speed pitches) was not there.”
Seattle manager Scott Servais said, pointedly, that Miranda needed to stick longer with his fastball, diminished velocity or not.
“Ariel wasn’t real sharp coming out of the chute,” Servais said. “The thing with Ariel is he has to pitch off his fastball. His fastball has some life up in the zone, and he’s got to stick with it.
“Today, he got away from it and started going to a lot of off-speed stuff early. You’ve got to keep throwing the fastball until you get a feel for it because that is his pitch. It sets up everything else.”
Who knows? Maybe that Twins would have feasted on Miranda’s fastball, too. As it was, the Mariners found themselves in an early 5-0 hole and never recovered against Twins starter Jose Berrios (6-1). Berrios allowed five hits and struck out six in eight innings before Brandon Kintzler closed out the game.
“We knew going in that Berrios had very good stuff,” Servais said. “An electric fastball. A good breaking ball. Give him credit. We’ve been swinging the bats very well, and he shut us down.”
Chase De Jong replaced Miranda to start the fifth and threw 54 pitches over four innings, which likely means he’s headed back to Triple-A Tacoma in a switch for a fresh arm before Friday’s series opener at Texas.
“He comes in and gives us four zeroes. Saved our bullpen a little bit,” Servais said of De Jong. “Those guys in that long relief role have done a great job all year. They’ve stepped in and allowed this thing to keep moving forward even when we have a rough day.”
This was rough from the start. Mariner right fielder Mitch Haniger, tormented by the wind, misplayed Brian Dozier’s leadoff fly into a double in the bottom of the first.
“On my original read,” Haniger said, “I thought it was going to be right over my shoulder. Then it got up in that jet stream, and I did not expect it to go that far.
“I was tracking it. I looked back to see that I had enough room at the wall, and when I looked back it was 20 feet farther than I expected it.”
It was downhill from there.
Dozier went to third on a wild pitch before Eduardo Escobar yanked a low-and-away changeup into the left-field seats for a 2-0 lead.
It got worse.
Miranda walked Miguel Sano and gave up a two-out bunt single to Jorge Polanco before Chris Gimenez lined another changeup into the left-field seats for a 5-0 lead.
When Miranda started the second inning by hitting Dozier, it brought warnings to both benches. (The same thing happened Wednesday after Minnesota’s Ervin Santana hit two Mariners. Both times, nothing further happened.)
The Mariners got one run back in the third on Ben Gamel’s two-out RBI single, but Gimenez answered later in the inning with another homer — a leadoff drive that just hooked around the left-field pole. The HR made Gimenez, a former Mariner, the first Twins catcher to hit more than one homer in a game since Joe Mauer on Aug. 18, 2009 at Texas.
Berrios yielded the game’s final run when Gamel opened the sixth inning with a single, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on Robinson Cano’s single up the middle.
Gamel went 2-for-4 and raised his average to .345. He has 15 hits in his past 30 at-bats.
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