Twins lose second in a row to Blue Jays as bullpen falters late

Addison Barger, the Blue Jays right fielder, opened the eighth inning with a double off Jax. Springer, the next batter, clubbed his 10th home run of the season on a 2-2 pitch. It was the first homer, and just the second extra-base hit, Jax surrendered on his changeup this year.

“We’re not playing poorly,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We did a lot of good things in that game. You want to hold onto that lead. We’ve got to find a way to pad a little bit and put some more runs on the board. We had some opportunities to do that.”

The Blue Jays added a run in the ninth inning against Jhoan Duran. Tyler Heineman hit a one-out single, advanced to second on a groundout and scored on a two-out RBI single from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Kody Clemens hit a solo homer to lead off the bottom half of the inning, but that left the Twins a run short.

“The last month of baseball has been very nice,” Baldelli said. “Guys have come through in a ton of spots. Today was a game where we just needed to come through probably one more time, on either side of the ball.”

Matt Wallner gave the Twins a one-run lead with a solo homer off Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman in the sixth inning, looping a high fastball over the right field wall. Wallner has three homers in six games since returning from a six-week stint on the injured list because of a hamstring strain.