Detroit Tigers relievers fail to stop Minnesota Twins in 5-3 loss

MINNEAPOLIS — Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal failed to reach 100 pitches in the 2024 season. The trend continued in his 17th start, Tuesday’s series opener against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field.

Skubal completed six innings on 94 pitches, allowing three runs, but he did not return to the mound for the seventh inning. In the seventh, the Twins took the lead against right-handed reliever Will Vest and never looked back.

The Tigers lost 5-3 to the Twins on Tuesday in the first of three games at Target Field. With their latest loss, the Tigers (38-47) have lost 17 of their last 24 games, including six losses in their last eight.

The Tigers and Twins were tied, 3-3, when manager AJ Hinch replaced Skubal with Vest to open the seventh inning against the always dangerous Byron Buxton.

Buxton hit Vest’s fastball to the middle of right field for a double to first base. He then advanced to third base on Vest’s wild pitch.

On an ensuing ground ball, second baseman Colt Keith tried to pick off Buxton who was trying to score, but his throw to catcher Jake Rogers went to the first-base side of the plate, and as a result, Buxton was safe with a head-first slide.

Thus, the Twins took a 4-3 lead over the Tigers.

The Twins extended their lead to 5-3 in the eighth inning when shortstop Carlos Correa, who is hitting .418 in his last 23 games, smoked a middle-of-the-road slider from right-handed reliever Beau Brieske for a 421-foot solo home run to left-center field.

Tarik Skubal Day

Skubal, the favorite to win the American League Cy Young Award, allowed three runs on four hits and one walk with seven strikeouts in six innings.

The Twins scored two runs in the third inning and one run in the fifth inning.

Skubal won an 11-pitch battle against Correa for the second out of the third inning, retiring him with a sinker painted on the bottom of the zone, but Royce Lewis — who later left the game with a left groin strain — hit a changeup down and in along the left-field line for a two-run double, scoring Kyle Farmer (single) and Manuel Margot (single).

There was no play at the plate because shortstop Ryan Kreidler dropped a throw from left fielder Akil Baddoo.

In the fifth inning, Margot hit a solo home run to left-center field. His third home run of the season tied the score, 3-3.

Skubal, who ended his start by striking out Carlos Santana with a changeup, generated 14 whiffs on 54 swings — a 25.9 percent whiff rate — with two fastballs, seven changeups, three sinkers and two sliders.

The Twins averaged 89.8 mph on 15 balls in play, including an average of 97.1 mph on seven balls in play thanks to his changeup. Although the Twins produced hard contact, Skubal limited the damage to three runs.

His ERA went from 2.32 to 2.45.

Two circuits, three points

The Tigers scored three runs in the fifth inning, all against right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson.

Rookie Justyn-Henry Malloy, who singled with two outs in the second inning, turned on Woods Richardson’s changeup and crushed a 402-foot solo home run to left field. After Baddoo’s single, Kreidler turned on a slider in the middle of the inning for a 395-foot, two-run home run to left field.

It was Malloy’s fourth home run of the season. Kreidler, meanwhile, hit his first home run in 15 games this season and second in 52 career MLB games.

Woods Richardson allowed three runs on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts in 5⅔ innings, throwing 94 pitches. Aside from the fifth, the Tigers had just two hits in the other eight innings.

Contact Evan Petzold at [email protected] or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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