Twins lose lead in ninth inning, fall in extras to Tigers
Jul. 28—The Twins don't know yet how long they'll be without the most dependable arm in their bullpen. Taylor Rogers left Monday night's game with a left middle finger sprain and is off for a second — and possibly third — opinion.
What they do know is that they're going to need others to step up in his absence and so far, that's proven a difficult task.
Things played out similarly on Tuesday as they did a night earlier, with the Twins watching a lead disappear in the ninth inning on a Detroit home run. Miguel Cabrera's 11th-inning single up the middle off Jorge Alcala led the Tigers to a 6-5 win at Target Field.
"It doesn't get too much more difficult than that," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "The loss today, it stings a lot. ... The game is not really forgiving, and you have to go out and earn it. We have to play nine good innings to get a win."
And on Tuesday, they didn't.
While the Twins ended up winning Monday's game in extra innings, they first watched their ninth-inning lead dissipate as Alexander Colomé served up a two-run, game-tying home run. This time, they entered the ninth with a four-run lead. By the time Hansel Robles was walking off the mound next to assistant athletic trainer Masa Abe, the Tigers had tied the game on a grand slam by catcher Eric Haase.
That was the end of a lead the Twins had held since a first-inning grand slam by Mitch Garver, eliciting boos from the Target Field crowd.
Baldelli said he believed Robles was dealing with a heat-related illness and was feeling better after getting inside and cooling off.
The Twins were not without chances of their own, loading the bases in the bottom of the 10th before Max Kepler and Miguel Sanó struck out. Before those two strikeouts, catcher Mitch Garver was hit on the in the right wrist area by an errant pitch. He left the game immediately, in clear pain. X-rays were negative, Baldelli said, and he is day-to-day with a contusion.
The late-inning Detroit comeback stripped away a win from starter Kenta Maeda, who lowered his July earned-run average to 2.15 with yet another solid start after a rocky beginning to his season.
The only run Maeda gave up in his 6 1/3-inning start came in the third when he allowed a home run to former Twins prospect Akil Baddoo. But otherwise, he was economical with his pitches and did a good job limiting damage against him, getting double plays to end each of the first two innings.
"It's what we've seen from him lately," Baldelli said. "It's just quality outing after quality outing. I think he's more than found himself recently."
Maeda, who had a 5.56 ERA entering the month of July, struck out 36 batters in his five July starts, walked six and held opposing hitters to a sub-.200 batting average against in the month.
"When bad games happened early on in the season, it was hard for me to get on the right mental side of the game," Maeda said. "My mechanics were a little bit off. All these little things were off, but gradually things got better since the Kansas City outing (on July 4) and here I am today."
Maeda's solid start and a quick start by the Twins — singles from Jorge Polanco and Brent Rooker, as well as a Josh Donaldson walk preceded the first grand slam of Garver's career — had the Twins well positioned for a win that would never come.
"(The game was) well within our reach, we had every opportunity in the world to pick up this win, and we couldn't finish it out," Baldelli said. "And that is going to happen. And we'll just keep going. We're not going to look back. This is a very difficult night for everyone."
