MINNEAPOLIS — Less than 20 minutes into Monday’s game, the desperate-to-win Detroit Tigers were in a deep hole.
A first-inning grand slam from Max Kepler, who has drilled four of his six home runs off the Tigers this season, gave the Minnesota Twins a sturdy advantage. The Tigers climbed out of the early deficit, but they still lost, 5-4, in the first of three games at Target Field.
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Detroit dropped to 14-27, now 11½ games behind the Twins for first place in the American League Central.
“We did fight back,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “We had a lot of opportunities, but we needed a lot of opportunities to chip away and make it a game. It was a tough start for us. I thought we outplayed them, other than the first inning and the last inning. Unfortunately, they made the most of their opportunities. … It’s a tough loss.”
Falling behind 4-0 on Kepler’s blast was detrimental, simply because of the Tigers’ woeful offense so far this season. The Tigers, entering Monday, had scored more than four runs in six of 40 games.
After Monday, it’s six of 41 games.
“We have a resilient team,” Hinch said. “Our record doesn’t indicate it, but I believe our guys are going to play the whole game. It doesn’t surprise me that we chip away. We had some really good at-bats. It’s encouraging. Tonight will feel hollow, but I’m proud of the guys for fighting back after a tough start.”
The Tigers tied the game in the seventh inning, as Miguel Cabrera delivered an RBI single off right-handed reliever Joe Smith. Two innings later, the Twins won on Gio Urshela’s walk-off single in the ninth.
Urshela stepped to the plate against lefty reliever Andrew Chafin with runners on the corners and one out. The first two batters reached safely — Kepler walked and Kyle Garlick singled — before Gary Sanchez popped out.
On Chafin’s third-pitch sinker, Urshela produced a hit back up the middle.
Shortstop Javier Báez, fully extended, stopped the ball from getting into the outfield, but the ball rolled away from his glove. The Tigers didn’t come close to turning an inning-ending double play, and Kepler scored easily from third base to end the game.
“We were inches away from a double-play ball,” Hinch said. “I thought Javy almost had a chance to make a miraculous play to flip the ball to (Jonathan) Schoop and maybe turn the double play to get out of that mess.”
In the first inning, the Twins ambushed right-hander Elvin Rodriguez to spoil the beginning of his first MLB start. The 24-year-old made his MLB debut April 10 as a reliever, then got sent down to Triple-A Toledo to build up his stamina as a starting pitcher.
Rodriguez needed 24 pitches for the first three outs.
“I wasn’t nervous, no jitters,” Rodriguez said. “Basically, I was trying to be perfect. I was trying to paint my pitches and be more precise than I used to be. I realized I had to do things different.”
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With one out, Rodriguez allowed three baserunners to reach safely: Luis Arraez (four-pitch walk), Carlos Correa (first-pitch single, fastball) and Jorge Polanco (second-pitch single, changeup).
Kepler, after back-to-back balls, received a third-pitch changeup from Rodriguez over the heart of the plate. He didn’t miss the mistake, driving the ball 408 feet over the right-field wall with a 108 mph exit velocity.
“I didn’t execute as I wanted,” Rodriguez said.
The Tigers could’ve scored the first run of the game, but they stranded two runners in scoring position. Cabrera singled and Báez doubled, both with two outs, but Harold Castro lined out to left field.
Still, the Tigers put up a fight the rest of the way.
Four runs were scattered across nine innings, with 10 hits, two walks and 10 strikeouts. The Tigers finished 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position, stranding nine runners on base.
Cabrera, Báez, Schoop, Eric Haase and Spencer Torkelson had two-hit performances.
Rodriguez gave up four runs on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts across five innings, throwing 43 of 75 pitches for strikes. The first three arms out of the Tigers’ bullpen didn’t concede a run: Jose Jimenez in the sixth, Wily Peralta in the seventh and Alex Lange in the eighth.
“That was big,” Haase said of Rodriguez’s bounce-back effort. “That was the difference in the ballgame. That gave us a chance to come back, fight and claw. If we go right to the bullpen, the wheels are spinning early on. To come up and throw zeroes was huge after that first inning.”
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A rough start
Rodriguez settled down and posted four straight scoreless frames.
He tossed nine pitches in the second inning, 11 in the third, 11 in the fourth and 20 in the fifth. After Kepler’s grand slam, the Twins didn’t record another hit until Arraez’s two-out single in the fifth.
“The game wasn’t over,” Rodriguez said. “I had to be more aggressive and attack the hitters. That’s what I did.”
Rodriguez pitched a perfect second inning to get back on track. For the third out, he struck out Byron Buxton swinging with an 86.3 mph slider. He recorded three swings and misses during the at-bat: two sliders and one changeup.
Arraez opened the third with a five-pitch walk and put Rodriguez in a dangerous situation against Correa. The Tigers’ defense, though, aided its young starter with a double play.
Then, Rodriguez struck out Polanco swinging with a changeup to end the third.
“Just being aggressive in each and every one of my pitches,” Rodriguez said. “I was trying to do too much with my fastball, and that didn’t help me a lot. The key part is using all the pitches in my repertoire.”
Rodriguez pitched a perfect fourth, and in the fifth, he worked around a walk and a single. He faced Correa for the third time, only this time with two runners in scoring position and two outs.
Correa grounded out to third base.
For his 75 pitches, Rodriguez used 34 four-seam fastballs (45%), 19 sliders (25%), 18 changeups (24%) and four curveballs (5%). He earned four swings and misses, including three with his changeup and two with his slider.
He also had 12 called strikes.
“My biggest memory is going to be the adjustment I made right after the first inning,” Rodriguez said. “That is the thing that will stay with me.”
The slow comeback
The Tigers scored their first run in the second inning, thanks to Daz Cameron’s RBI force out, but the offense didn’t start clicking until Twins right-hander Chris Archer exited.
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Archer, who threw 72 pitches, allowed one run on three this and two walks with four strikeouts in four innings. He was replaced by righty reliever Griffin Jax for the next two innings.
“I’m not going to criticize the offense when we chipped away after a four-run deficit in the first,” Hinch said. “You need to create a lot of opportunities to find a way to get back in that game. We did.”
The Tigers capitalized on the pitching change.
Schoop crushed a 430-foot solo home run — the second-longest by a Tiger this season — to left-center field in the fifth inning.
In the sixth, Haase followed Torkelson’s two-out double by driving in the rookie first baseman with an RBI single. And Cabrera tied the game, 4-4, with his RBI single in the seventh.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.