The Minnesota Twins had an answer for almost everything the Detroit Tigers did on Sunday afternoon — at least until the ninth inning. The Twins threatened late and closed to within a run in both the seventh and eighth innings, but ultimately fell 9-6 to drop not only the game, but the series to the Tigers.
The loss dropped the Twins to 49-48 — and third place in the American League Central.
It was clear early that the game did not have a good pace, and that stood the test of time with a final length of 4:19 — the longest nine-inning game in Twins history. The previous record was set exactly one year ago, an 11-9 win at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox that checked in eight minutes shorter than Sunday’s loss.
One big reason for the pace was that both teams combined for 26 strikeouts and 10 walks.
That sluggish pace started with Twins starter Adalberto Mejia, who was going up against the top offense in the game against left-handed pitching (124 wRC+).
Mejia didn’t pitch poorly but simply was unable to put hitters away all day. He lasted just 4.1 innings and threw 96 pitches, but the final damage was far from terrifying — five hits, two runs (one earned) with five strikeouts and a pair of walks. Mejia had a 1-2-3 first inning and followed it by striking out the side in the second around a two-out double off the bat of catcher James McCann.
“I was just trying to throw the right pitches and stuff and be perfect out there,” Mejia said. “But they were fouling the ball off and that’s just part of the game. They’re a very good team. That hurt me a little bit, since we kept going into deep counts.”
The third inning is where Mejia was really victimized — not only by the Tigers but also by poor defense. Jose Iglesias, who was a thorn in the Twins’ side all day, looped a single over Jorge Polanco into left field, and Ian Kinsler followed with a grounder to the left side that deflected off Eduardo Escobar’s glove to Polanco, who couldn’t make a strong enough throw over to first to complete the play. The throw short hopped Miguel Sano at first base and trickled away, allowing Iglesias to scamper to third.
This was also all in the span of the first two pitches of the third inning.
Mejia bore down to strike out Nicholas Castellanos on a full-count fastball that the batter did not like — this was a recurring theme all afternoon — for the first out of the inning, but a snowball fight erupted when Justin Upton followed with an RBI double to right field. Iglesias scored on the play initially, but Kinsler was being held up at third as the ball came in to Brian Dozier from Max Kepler. Dozier threw wildly home at the feet of catcher Chris Gimenez, and the ball got past him and Mejia all the way to the backstop. By the time Mejia recovered, his throw to Gimenez was not only late but wide of the plate, and allowed Upton to end up at third, where he was stranded following a foul pop to first and a head-high grounder to Polanco at short.
All told, the Twins committed three errors in the inning, including two on that play alone. The first was on Gimenez — which doesn’t really make any sense — the Mejia’s throw drawing the other.
The Tigers led 2-0 after the inning, but the Twins returned fire on a third-deck home run off the bat of Eduardo Escobar. Statcast had the home run coming off the bat at 108.4 mph and landing 438 feet from home plate — both of which were game-high marks.
The long ball came off Tigers starter Matt Boyd, who otherwise had a solid day, tossing six innings of three-run ball with eight strikeouts and three walks in a minimalist quality start.
Escobar’s home run tied the game 2-2, where it stayed until the seventh inning. Right-handed reliever Trevor Hildenberger took over for Mejia in the fifth, and doused some significant flames by fanning Miguel Cabrera and Upton in the span of seven pitches. He also came back to face the minimum in the sixth, buoyed by some fancy glove work at first base, as Sano started an unconventional 3-3-6 double play to erase a single off the bat of Mikie Mahtook.
But while Hildenberger was great in his first two innings, he ran into trouble in his third. Former Twins outfielder Alex Presley led off the inning with a single, and Iglesias followed with a 430-foot, second-deck home run to give the Tigers a 4-2 lead — one they never ended up relinquishing. Kinsler followed that with a double off the glove of Rosario in left, and Hildenberger’s day was done.
Ryan Pressly entered and got Castellanos to strike out on a pitch that hit the umpire in the chest protector and trickled away. In the ensuing chaos, Gimenez threw down to first base to complete the play, with Kinsler wisely picking up third base. He was stranded there, however, as Presley recovered to strike out Upton and Cabrera — just like Hildenberger had done two innings before.
The Twins put up a fight in the seventh inning against Tigers reliever Shane Greene — including an epic 13-pitch at-bat for Eduardo Escobar which ended with a swinging strikeout on a 96 mph fastball — but ultimately were only able to scratch one run across while stranding the bases full.
Pressly started the eighth with a groundout from Mahtook, but gave way to Buddy Boshers, who got just one out but allowed a double to McCann and another single to Presley. Tyler Duffey came in to stop the bleeding, but was greeted by a 2-0 single from Iglesias and a Kinsler single to give the Tigers a 6-3 lead as fans started heading for the gates.
The Twins weren’t done yet, though. Bruce Rondon entered the game in relief of Greene — who struck out the side in the seventh but did give up a run to make the score 4-3 in favor of Detroit — rolling off setting down all six batters he’d faced in the first two games of the series. The third game was markedly more difficult for the Tigers reliever, even after he put the golden sombrero on Sano to start the inning.
For the uninitiated, that’s a four-strikeout game.
Rondon got up 0-2 on Robbie Grossman before allowing a jam-shot single to right, and Rosario followed with a looping double into right-center which probably should have been caught. It bounced once and hit the fence, and Statcast gave it a 16 percent chance of being a hit off the bat, based on trajectory and exit velocity.
Nevertheless, the Twins were back in business. Joe Mauer singled up the box to score Grossman and Rosario, but was stranded at second after moving up on a Max Kepler groundout when Jason Castro struck out for the second time after entering as a pinch hitter in the seventh.
With the Twins down a run in the ninth, Brandon Kintzler entered in a non-save situation to keep the game close. That tactic did not work however, as the closer gave up a leadoff double to Upton. Upton stole third and scored when Victor Martinez roped a single to right-center. After a four-pitch walk to McCann, Craig Breslow entered to close out the game. He allowed a single to Presley and a walk, and by the end of the inning, the Tigers had a 9-5 lead.
Dozier added a home run in the ninth — his 16th of the season — off Tigers closer Justin Wilson, but that capped the scoring as the Twins fell, 9-6.
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Notes
- The Twins designated Breslow for assignment following Sunday’s loss. The team now has 10 days to trade or release him, with Molitor saying the preference was for the team to find a major-league fit for him elsewhere. Breslow said he plans to keep pitching.
- The Twins also traded Triple-A starting pitcher Nick Tepesch to the Toronto Blue Jays for cash. Tepesch had made one big-league start with the Twins — a loss to the Red Sox — and had most recently appeared in three games on a rehab stint with the GCL Twins, allowing 10 earned runs in eight innings (11.25 ERA) with an opponents’ slash line allowed of .324/.400/.382.
- Dozier led the game off with a hustle double, extending his hitting streak to nine games since the All-Star break.
- The Twins have lost six straight series at home against the Tigers.
- The Tigers improved to 6-4 since the All-Star break with the win.
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