CLEVELAND >> Pablo López threw 89 pitches on Wednesday, but it was the last ball to leave his hand — not even a pitch — that the starting pitcher would like back the most.

Locked in a scoreless game, López fielded a tapper from Carlos Santana and slung the ball past first baseman Ty France, allowing Guardians star José Ramírez to score all the way from second. That play ended Lopez’s night.

The inning further unraveled when the 39-year-old Santana took off from first and catcher Ryan Jeffers’ attempted throw to second hit reliever Brock Stewart on his non-throwing elbow. Santana advanced to third on a wild pitch and, after a walk to Gabriel Arias, Bo Naylor launched a three-run home run to put the Twins in a 4-0 hole.

The Twins added a couple of late runs Wednesday but fell, 4-2, at Progressive Field, in a game that got away in a matter of minutes after six innings of a pitchers duel.

“There’s … no excuse (for) throwing the ball the way I did. I could have just not thrown it or I could have made a better throw,” López said. “I was a little slow off the mound, probably thinking too much about my leg and all of that and then just didn’t throw it well.”

López said, if given the chance, he’d “100 percent” throw the ball to first again — it’s the only chance at actually getting an out, he reasoned — he’d just make a more accurate throw.

The starter was also not helped by home plate umpire Malachi Moore’s strike zone, which likely changed the course of the inning. López, for example, appeared to have clipped the bottom of the zone with what would have been strike three to Santana for the second out of the inning. He didn’t get the call.

“He missed more that inning than he should have,” Jeffers said of Moore. “It’s no secret. Those were in the strike zone.”

All of the dramatics of the seventh inning came after López cruised through his first six innings, allowing just two hits, a pair of doubles. He had little run support to speak of, though, because while López was dealing for the Twins (13-18), so, too, was Guardians starter Luis Ortiz.

Trevor Larnach got the only Twins hit through the first five innings in the second, and he was quickly wiped off the basepaths by a double play.

Byron Buxton, who hit an infield single and advanced all the way to third on a stolen base — the 100th of his career — plus an error, represented the Twins’ first runner in scoring position, and that didn’t happen until the sixth as Ortiz quieted the Twins.

“I think that’s probably as good as he can throw the ball and locate all of his pitches, and you saw the result,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

The Twins, who scored just one run a day earlier in a walk-off loss, got on the board in the eighth with a solo home run from Brooks Lee. They scored a run an inning later, too, off Cleveland closer Emmanuel Close, but that was the closest they’d get.

“There were some things that happened in that seventh inning, they either weren’t good or could’ve turned out better for us,” Baldelli said. “Some of it was a little unfortunate, and some of it was our own doing.”