Twins turn tables on punchless Yankees

MINNEAPOLIS — If nothing else the last 20-plus years, the Yankees could depend on a series against the Twins to right the ship if it happened to be listing.

Not this year.

The Yankees dropped their first season series against a team that has long been their personal speed bag — both in the regular season and postseason — by virtue of a 6-2 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night in front of a crowd of 19,201 on a 50-degree night at Target Field.

The Yankees (13-11), who have lost three in a row and four of their last five, fell to 2-4 against the Twins (14-10) this season with one game to go against them on Wednesday.

The last time the Yankees lost a season series to them was 2001.

Tuesday night, the Yankees bats were quiet again, as they have been for the better part of two weeks, producing eight hits, two by rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe.

The Bombers have averaged 2.9 runs with a .201 batting average in their last 12 games after averaging 5.1 runs with a .249 average in their first 12.

“Last night [Monday] I felt like we were dominated in a lot of ways and tonight I felt like was different,” Aaron Boone said, referencing Monday’s 5-1 loss in which his team had six hits and few hard-hit balls. “You could sense that right from jump street as we were able to hit some balls on the screws. Volpe lines out to start the game…but still not breaking through with that big one. We’ve had a hard time hitting the ball out of the ballpark, too.”

Nestor Cortes (3-1, 3.49) allowed a season-high four runs (three earned) and five hits over five innings. The lefthander struck out six.

“I’d say average,” Cortes said in summarizing his outing.

Twins righthander Joe Ryan (5-0, 2.81) — who dominated the Yankees 12 days before at the Stadium, striking out 10 over seven innings in which he allowed one run and three hits — wasn’t quite that sharp but he was sharp enough. He allowed two runs (one earned), seven hits, did not walk a batter and struck out seven.

The Yankees did take an early lead when Aaron Judge, batting third rather than his usual No. 2 spot in the order, singled to left, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on DJ LeMahieu’s single to right. That improved LeMahieu’s slash line the last 11 games to .351/.442/.955.

The Twins took the lead in the third. Michael A. Taylor, a fast runner, hit a leadoff grounder to short that a charging Volpe whiffed on for an error, his third of the season.

Donovan Solano’s RBI double tied it at 1-1 and after the struggling Carlos Correa struck out, Jorge Polanco’s RBI double made it 2-1.

The Yankees drew even in the fifth, this time aided by some shoddy Twins’ glove work. Aaron Hicks led off with a bullet past Solano and Volpe followed with his second hit of the night. Anthony Rizzo struck out looking and Judge hit a ground smash to third that should have been the start of a 5-4-3 inning-ending double play. But Solano failed to catch the relay throw from Polanco, the second baseman, the error allowing Hicks to score to make it 2-2.

Polanco led off the sixth with his second double of the night and Buxton crushed a 3-and-2 cutter to left for his fourth homer that made it 4-2.

“It didn’t get in enough,” Cortes said of the pitch. “And I think that was the difference in the game right there.”

Ron Marinaccio, whom opposing team batters were just 2-for-30 (.067) against coming into the night, allowed a one-out infield single to Ryan Jeffers and struck out Willi Castro. But Trevor Larnach teed off on a first-pitch changeup, generally considered Marinaccio’s best pitch, and blasted it to center to make it 6-2.

“You try and take a little gain in that,” Boone said of the better at-bat quality he saw Tuesday. “But the reality is we’re in a stretch right now where we haven’t scored enough runs, and that’s gotta change.”