The Minnesota Twins were able to respond well after a series loss to the Blue Jays with a 3-game sweep against the Orioles, but were only able to grab one game against one of the league's top teams, the Houston Astros.

Going into this series, all I wanted from the Twins was to win one out of the three games this series, and I knew it wasn't going to be the third game when I saw the pitching matchups: TBD vs Justin Verlander. That meant they needed to take one of the first two, and they did exactly that.

Jake Odorizzi was able to pick up his second win of the season, and second straight, in a 9-5 win on Monday. Odorizzi dealt 5.2 innings, giving up only two runs on eight hits and no walks. He moved to 2-2 with a 4.37 ERA in five appearances on the season.

Unfortunately, the bullpen wasn't too clean in their relief. Ryne Harper came in for the seventh inning, but gave up a 3-run bomb to Carlos Correa. Adalberto Mejia and Blake Parker were both able to come in and throw shutout innings to close the game off.

Polanco was able to have himself a night going 4-5 with four RBIs, including one home run. The Twins racked up 12 hits plus two runs late to help seal the win and take the first game of the series, which was also the first game the Astros have lost at home this year.

The next two games of the series got out of hand, lacked offensive, and included struggles from both the starting pitchers and the bullpen. They allowed 17 runs total while only scoring five.

The Twins got up 3-0 early in the first game thanks to another Eddie Rosario 3-run home run in the top of the first, but could only manage to score one more run the entire game. Michael Pineda was the starter for this game and went 5.1 innings but gave up four runs on eight hits and two walks. He, luckily, didn't pick up a loss because the Twins were able to tie the game seventh.

The tie didn't last long as the bullpen wasn't able to keep the game close. Again in the seventh, the Twins bullpen gave up runs, this time only being two but coming from Trevor Hildenberger and thanks to a couple errors, four runs were scored in the eighth against Tyler Duffey. The twins ultimately lost game two 10-4.

We saw two of our relievers surrender their first runs of the year. Harper gave up three runs in game one and Hildenberger give up two runs in game two. The bullpen was again pretty unreliable in these first two games, but probably wasn't the only reason for the loss in game two.

The series finale was tonight and Verlander continued to hurt the Twins, pitching eight innings, striking out eight and only giving up four hits and one run. The one run was a home run off the hot hand of Polanco, but was the sole run for the Twins tonight.

Before the game, the Twins made some roster moves to get a starter for tonight and another reliever. The two guys brought up, Kohl Stewart and Fernando Romero were the only two pitchers the Twins had to send out tonight. Stewart dealt six innings, but gave up five runs on eight hits and three walks, and Romero finished the game with two innings and two runs. With this transaction, they sent down Tyler Duffey and Jake Cave.

I am actually content with how the Twins played this series finale. They've had to play 12 games in just as many days and were playing against the Astros ace. The Twins were able to give some guys the night off in the field and in the bullpen. Byron Buxton, Mitch Garver, and Jonathan Schoop were all given the night off as well as the whole bullpen, besides Romero who we just called up.

Like I said at the beginning, going into the series, I wanted one win out of this series and I got that. However, I would've liked to see a better performance from the pitchers. The Twins face the Orioles again, but this time at home in what hopefully is another bounce back series both for the offense and pitchers.

After this series the Twins moved to 13-9 but still have a half game lead on the Cleveland Indians for the lead in the A.L. Central.

The Twins busy schedule isn't even close to over after they get one off day tomorrow, they play 13 straight days with seven being home and six being on the road.