CHICAGO — It was only a matter of time before the frustrations boiled over for the fading Twins, and that’s exactly what happened at Guaranteed Rate Field in Wednesday’s strange sixth inning.

In a span of a minute or so, with the Twins on their way to a 6-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox, third-base coach Gene Glynn and manager Paul Molitor were ejected. Crew chief Gerry Davis tossed the mild-mannered Glynn first after Eddie Rosario reached third on Brian Dozier’s two-out single.

When James Shields was called for a balk on a pickoff attempt at third, White Sox manager Rick Renteria asked the umpiring crew to huddle and reconsider. The call was overturned, which brought Molitor out of the dugout for a calm confab with Davis and plate umpire Pat Hoberg.

It was Hoberg who tossed Molitor, marking the Hall of Famer’s sixth career ejection as a manager and his first this season. For Glynn, it was his third career ejection in the majors but his first since August 2001, when he was coaching third for the late Don Baylor with the Chicago Cubs.

“I respect the umpires 100 percent, all the time,” Glynn said. “When I asked (Davis) about Shields not stopping, he had come back with, I thought, an insulting, sarcastic line to me.”

That was in the fifth, when Ehire Adrianza was on first. When Rosario reached third the next inning, Glynn told Davis he thought it was a “horses— thing” he said to him and repeated the line for emphasis.

Davis tossed him at that point.

“(Glynn) had wanted a balk the inning before,” Davis told a pool reporter. “I explained to him it was not a balk, told him I wasn’t sure he knew the definition of what a balk was for a stop. Told him if (Shields’) hands stop before his leg comes up, it’s not a balk.”

Molitor came out to ask if Renteria was allowed to contest a balk call and was told that he was for that particular type of call. Molitor said he couldn’t believe the whole umpiring crew saw Shields disengage the pitching rubber before making a jump throw to third.

“There were a lot of things about the move that were suspect to me,” Molitor said. “It was fast. I looked at the replay, and I couldn’t even tell if he did. It was just a weird sequence.”

At a park known mainly for its exploding scoreboard, the best fireworks on Polish Heritage Night came with those ejections of Twins staff members. When the White Sox in-game entertainment crew played the theme from “Frozen” later that inning, it just might have been an ode to a listless Twins lineup.

Back on May 3 against Gibson, Shields retired the first 16 Twins and didn’t give up his first hit until there was one out in the sixth. The Twins stormed back to win 5-3 on that Sunday afternoon, but there would be no such drama this time.

Dropping their fifth game out of six, the Twins (34-42) have matched their season low in relation to .500 and have fallen a season-high 8 1/2 games behind the first-place Cleveland Indians in the American League Central. They also lost for the fourth time in their past five games against the rebuilding White Sox, who now trail the season series by a margin of just 6-5.

“We’re beating the teams that are probably the best teams on our schedule and playing them really well and just not coming up with the hits and the pitching performances when we need to against (teams) like these,” Twins starter Kyle Gibson said. “Not that Chicago’s a bad team. They’re a big league team. We just have to be better in these situations. You have to beat the teams you’re supposed to beat.”

Jose Abreu hit his second career homer against Gibson, who had held him to a .214 average through his first 28 at-bats. Four of the 11 hits off Gibson came in a three-run fourth, with Leury Garcia’s double the highlight.

After their final 15 batters were retired in Tuesday’s 8-4 loss in the rain, the Twins made five more outs before Robbie Grossman’s two-out walk in the second. Adrianza, who will likely lose the shortstop job to Jorge Polanco next week, went 4 for 4 with a two-out RBI single in the ninth.

Adrianza is 6 for 7 in the series while the rest of the Twins’ lineup is 5 for 56 (.089).