MINNEAPOLIS — This haunts Charlie Morton. It strikes him at random intervals throughout his day, and it wakes him up from a dead sleep at night. The Orioles starting pitcher turns it over in his mind, unable to fathom the depths to which the beginning of his season has fallen.

“Honestly, it feels like it’s almost shocking to me,” Morton said partway through a five-minute answer after Baltimore’s 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.

The loss didn’t even lie solely at Morton’s feet. He allowed a three-run home run to Byron Buxton but otherwise held it together for four innings. The late crack from the bullpen and the inability to turn 10 hits into more than two runs played as large a role in the Orioles’ fourth straight loss.

Still, there’s no getting around it. Morton, 41, has been through difficult times during an 18-year major league career. But this is lower than any other — so much so that three runs in four innings actually lowered Morton’s ERA.

“When I wake up and I think about, ‘man, how poorly this has gone,’ it’s honestly like sometimes I don’t really know how to process it other than trying to be honest and rational with myself,” said Morton, who gathered steam as he pondered the question.

The question: Are you committed to seeing this out for however long the Orioles are willing to pitch you?

In short: Yes, he is.

His real answer was nearly 700 words. They flowed out and showcased the inner workings of Morton’s mind, how he longs for an answer to these questions, how this pains him more than it can possibly pain anyone watching.

“Those thoughts kind of creep into your head. ‘What am I doing?’” Morton said. “Right? Because if I’m not helping the team, if I’m just kind of weighing the team down ...”

Morton spoke of the “trap” he falls in here. The stuff out of his hand, for the most part, is performing well. He liked how his fastball played Wednesday, and his curveball spin rate is as high as ever. And, for three of the four innings Morton completed, the performance was solid.

“It would be way easier if I was throwing 89-91 and my curve wasn’t spinning and my changeup wasn’t sinking and running and my cutter wasn’t consistent,” Morton said. “It would be way easier just to go, ‘You know what, I don’t have it anymore. I just don’t have the physical talent to do it anymore.’ But the problem is I do.”

Except for one pitch.

Ramón Laureano, who scored both Orioles runs, celebrates his third-inning home run.

If it was a dartboard, it would’ve been a bull’s-eye. But this was not darts. It was a strike zone, and the hanging curveball that fluttered right down the middle never stood a chance against Buxton.

For Morton, that one pitch in the wrong location has been a common theme this season. In other starts, he’s hung more than one pitch in more than one wrong location, but on Wednesday it resulted in a three-run home run from Buxton — the Twins outfielder’s second in as many games.

This was far from the worst Morton has pitched for the Orioles. Before the game, general manager Mike Elias said on the New York Post podcast “The Show” that Morton is off to a “dreadful start,” and the fact three runs in four innings was an improvement showcases that.

“I still think that I have the physical ability to go out there and be a halfway decent pitcher,” Morton said. “I know that it might sound crazy, but not too long ago I actually had a decent year. So it’s really hard for me to think that there’s not a possibility that I just go out there and have a decent stretch or a decent year.”

It still resulted in a loss to the Twins, though, because of an offensive display that lacked bite and a bullpen that cracked late. It still doesn’t make the $15 million deal for Morton look like good value. And it still doesn’t make a case for Morton’s continuing place in the rotation.

Late last month, Baltimore shifted Morton into a bullpen role. Manager Brandon Hyde and Elias said they hoped it would allow him time to work on his delivery, to find a more consistent output, before returning to the rotation.

Morton started Wednesday’s game at Target Field, but there’s no guarantee he’ll remain in this role. Right-hander Zach Eflin is scheduled to return from a lat strain this weekend against the Los Angeles Angels and, with him, the Orioles have enough healthy starters — Tomoyuki Sugano, Dean Kremer, Kyle Gibson, Cade Povich and Eflin — to shift Morton into mop-up duty.

As with many of Morton’s starts, there were moments that showed promise. He opened his night with two strikeouts in the first inning and a scoreless second. Then came his issues, in a rapid-fire trio: a single, a hit batter and the first-pitch, hanging curve to Buxton.

Morton has allowed eight homers this year. Four of them have been immediately preceded by a walk or hit batter.

“He’s had that kind of one tough inning in most of his starts,” Hyde said. “Just made a bad pitch to Buxton there, but three clean innings besides that, so it could be a step in the right direction.”

Those three runs off Morton didn’t seal the game for the Twins. But, with the way the Orioles’ offense is producing, the two-run, pinch-hit homer from Harrison Bader off left-hander Keegan Akin in the seventh may as well have.

The three-run deficit was more than this offense could deal with, even when Baltimore got out to a lead in the third inning. Ramón Laureano crushed his fourth homer of the season off right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson. Laureano scored another run in the fifth when he doubled and Heston Kjerstad drove him in with a single.

But, when the Orioles had an opportunity to chip further into their deficit, with runners on the corners in the fifth with two outs, left-hander Danny Coulombe struck out Cedric Mullins. And, with two on and one out in the eighth, Ryan Mountcastle grounded into a double play.

The lack of life dropped the Orioles (13-22) to nine games under .500 for the first time since July 2, 2022.

Morton isn’t the only one wracking his brain for a solution. The team at large is doing much the same.

“Continue to think positive, optimistic — that’s what this game is really about," Laureano said. “Everybody has their own brain, you know, so I can’t grab their brains and go, ‘Hey, look at this, bro. Let’s f------ go hard,’ you know. But, no, it’s not going to work like that. But we’ve just got to figure out a way to get a big fire for tomorrow.”

This article has been updated.