The Houston Astros have not had much to go their way over the early stages of the 2023 season.

The Astros dropped a second consecutive game to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday. As was the case in their series-opening defeat to Minnesota, Houston’s high-octane lineup tallied double-digits in strikeouts. The reigning World Series champions struck out 17 times in the matchup, as Twins starting pitcher Joe Ryan logged 10 strikeouts and 19 total swings and misses on the day.

Houston combined to strike out 33 times over the opening two contests of its three-game road series against Minnesota — a new franchise record for a two-game span.

In the big picture, Astros manager Dusty Baker sees that his team simply needs to be more efficient against breaking ball pitches.

“It's very shocking,” Baker said. “We gotta get on those breaking balls, swing at the strikes. They're getting strike one basically with the breaking ball, and they're expanding the zone after that.

“They're pitching us tough.”

Multiple Astros hitters had struggles in making sheer contact against breaking ball pitches on Saturday. For one, Astros shortstop Jeremy Pena struck out three times in the game, and one of his strikeouts came on a slider pitch from Twins reliever Jorge Lopez in the seventh inning of the contest.

The Astros will cap off their road series against the Twins on Sunday.