From Chronicle Staff Writer Susan Slusser at Target Field

Manager Bob Melvin had a brief talk with the A’s on Wednesday after the team’s eighth defeat in a row, a 4-o loss to the Twins, which completed Minnesota’s first three-game sweep since last June.

Melvin declined to give details of his discussion, but players said it was along the lines of what Melvin told the media when asked about the current skid. “We’ve got to continue to play hard,” Melvin said in his post-game interview session. “We play hard, but we have to fight hard. There’s a difference.

“We’ve lost a little of our fight when things don’t go our way early on. That’s not the way we had been – before this stretch, we had been really scrappy, that’s how we were defining our identity. That’s who we believed we were.”

The A’s have scored 12 runs in this eight game stretch. That’s just not going to get it done. They’ve been shut out a big-league leading nine times.

It’s one thing being swept by the Yankees, even in a down year for New York, but A’s came to Minnesota for three games against the league’s worst team. Josh Willingham, twisting the knife in further after the ex-A’s outfielder ended Tuesday night’s game with a walkoff home, drove in the first run of the day with a single in the first off Tyson Ross, then he clocked a two-run homer off Ross in the fifth inning.

Ross’ status might now be a little up in the air. I asked Melvin if Ross will make his next scheduled start – he has a 7.43 ERA in his past seven starts – and he said, “We have to play it out and see where it goes,” which isn’t much of a ringing endorsement.

Willingham said repeatedly last season he’d like to come back. He signed a three-year, $21 million deal with Minnesota; the A’s then signed Coco Crisp to a two-year, $14 million deal. Now, as I mentioned in the previous Drumbeat, the team had no idea they’d be able to land Yoenis Cespedes, but still….. wouldn’t an outfield of Willingham, Cespedes and Josh Reddick be a pretty good one? Useless hindsight, but Willingham did hit 29 homers last year, with half his games at the Coliseum. That’s like hitting 35 at a more hitter-friendly park, and he’s got 10 already for the Twins.

So, anyway, the A’s offense was even more dormant today than Tuesday, when the team managed two whole runs. On Wednesday, the team was facing Francisco Liriano, who has had trouble finding his old form. He entered the game 0-5 with an 8.47 ERA, and he shut down the A’s pretty thoroughly. Liriano gave up three hits and two walks in six innings – and he also struck out nine.

“It baffles me how that guy is struggling,” A’s outfielder Jonny Gomes said. “That’s one guy whose stats meant absolutely nothing today. I don’t know what that’s all about. He threw the ball like pre-injury. Maybe time off and the bullpen, and we got the wrath of that.

“Still, those guys were down. It would have been nice to beat them.”