MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins’ streak of series wins probably had to end sometime, and given the history between these two teams, it figures that it would end at the hands of the Yankees, who dealt the Twins their first series defeat since mid-April with a 4-0 Minnesota loss at Target Field on Wednesday night.

Simply put, nobody on the Twins’ pitching staff was getting in the way of Aaron Judge, who served as a one-man wrecking crew by going 4-for-4 with a 467-foot homer, three doubles and a walk -- but Pablo López felt he could probably have been sharper elsewhere, particularly in two-strike counts, to limit the damage more than he already did.

“It was about understanding that there wasn’t a necessity to change the approach,” López said. “That’s just the way baseball works sometimes. I just needed to stay convicted with every pitch. I challenged myself before the game: ‘I’m going to challenge these guys. I’m going to try to be as much in the zone as I can with my best stuff, stay convicted, stay true.’”

Much of the time, that works. On Wednesday, it didn’t.

These Twins are very much a strike-throwing bunch, especially in the rotation, where their current starting five have combined for 220 strikeouts and only 38 walks this season, a sparkling ratio that has typically ensured that they won’t be beating themselves by nibbling around and outside the strike zone.

López was the aggressor early in counts, as usual; he just couldn’t finish them. Seven of the 10 hits he surrendered came in two-strike counts, and three of those came in 0-2 counts -- and those are the ones that will stick with López.

“He put himself in the driver’s seat,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “The two-strike execution of his pitches was not where it normally is, and it led to some baserunners, some extended innings. He was, on almost all his pitches, he was throwing the right pitch. He’s got the right idea.”

Two of those 0-2 knocks came consecutively with one out in the second inning, which perhaps made the execution lapses more glaring in López’s mind. He got ahead of Gleyber Torres, 0-2, before a sweeper caught too much of the zone and Torres lined it for a hit. He also got ahead of Jose Trevino, 0-2, but a fastball caught too much of the plate and that led to another single and, later, a run in that second inning.

In those advantaged counts, López will count on himself to find a way to expand the strike zone more and throw pitches that won’t hurt him if he misses his spot, especially with the opportunistic Yankees knowing that he was likely to be around the plate all night.

“We were battling, and he’s a strike-thrower,” Judge said. “He does a good job of putting pitches in the zone and really working the corners as well. We were just able to get a couple of pitches that he left out over the plate with two strikes and put them in play when we needed to.”

There’s a balance of having count awareness, as López said, to expand the zone without sacrificing overall aggression -- and the latter still paid off, as he did find a groove to retire 12 of the final 14 batters he faced to grit through a difficult outing that ultimately still became a quality start as he limited the damage to only three early runs on 10 hits in 6 1/3 frames.

“Throwing strikes, it's always a good thing,” López said. “We talk about it. That's the approach that yields the best approach most of the time. As long as we don't shy away from the zone, just trust our defense, not fear contact, not being afraid to succeed or fail, just being in the zone and the rest will take care of itself.”

And sometimes, it won’t take care of itself because Judge is launching baseballs to the moon.

MLB’s extra-base hits leader in the month of May, Judge hit a first-inning blast to the third deck in left field that traveled a Statcast-projected 467 feet and set the tone for the Yankees’ early onslaught -- and perhaps there’s something different to be learned about locating from those at-bats against Judge.

“We don’t see many dudes that tall, so when you’re going up, you better get it, like, up, higher than high,” López said. “So I learned a lesson there: With people that tall, high means higher than high.”