Gleyber Torres drove in the winning run in the 11th inning and Riley Greene hit a two-run homer Thursday night to lead the Detroit Tigers to a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis.
Torres’ sacrifice fly to right field allowed Colt Keith to score from third base. Keith had earlier advanced from second when Twins reliever Erasmo Ramirez (0-1) threw a wild pitch.
Detroit reliever Rafael Montero (1-1), obtained from Atlanta at the trade deadline, pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings for the win.
The Tigers have won four of their past five games and improved their record to a major-league-best 19-8 in one-run games.
Minnesota opened the scoring in the third inning. Edouard Julien gave the Twins a 1-0 lead when he blasted his third home run of the season to right field. Austin Martin doubled, went to third on Byron Buxton’s single and scored on Ryan Jeffers’ groundout. Luke Keaschall’s single to left field pushed home Byron for a 3-0 lead.
The Tigers pulled within 3-2 in the fourth inning when Greene belted his 28th homer of the year to right field, driving in Kerry Carpenter, who had doubled.
Keith tied it at 3-3 in the sixth inning with his single to center field that scored Javier Baez, who had hit a leadoff double. The Tigers had a chance to take the lead with two runners on, but reliever Kody Funderburk replaced starter Bailey Ober and retired two of the next three batters to end the threat.
Ober struck out four while allowing three runs on four hits and no walks over 5 1/3 innings.
The Twins had a chance to win the game in the 10th. Mickey Gasper’s sacrifice bunt allowed Alan Roden to move to third base. Roden attempted to score on Martin’s fielder’s choice, but Detroit first baseman Spencer Torkelson threw to catcher Dillon Dingler, who tagged Roden on the left hand.
Detroit starter Tarik Skubal, who had struck out at least 10 batters in each of his last three road games, allowed three runs on six hits in seven innings. He walked two and struck out three. It was his lowest strikeout total since fanning only two against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the season opener on March 27.
Skubal finished off his outing by retiring 13 of the last 14 batters he faced.
–Field Level Media
