A.J. Hinch didn’t sound like a manager trying to ease his way through a rough patch before Wednesday’s game in Minneapolis. He sounded like a guy tired of watching the same mistakes pile up.
“There’s edge to the day because we hold ourselves to a higher bar,” Hinch said before the Tigers played a mostly solid game, well, until their bullpen melted down again to force extra innings. But Spencer Torkelson hit a clutch homer in the 12th inning, then Javier Baez lofted a three-RBI double to make it even more comfortable, as the Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 11-6, at Target Field on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
Detroit had dropped 14 of its previous 17 games, and Hinch made no attempt to sugarcoat it.
“It’s not good right now,” Hinch said. “I’m not shying away from it. It’s our own doing.”
He also laid out the fix in plain terms: “It can start tonight,” he said.
That message seemed to land early. The Tigers opened with a 2-0 lead in the second inning when John Peck, in just his third MLB game, drove in two runs with a double. It was the kind of clean, efficient offense Hinch had been asking for after two ugly losses to start the series, defeats by a combined 26-3.
Hinch said the common problems had been obvious: too many walks, too much damage, and too many short at-bats.
“Look, what has been a common theme when we struggle is we walk too many, we give up damage, and we have shorter at-bats,” he said. “Now, if you can just snap your finger and change all of that, it’s indeed way easier.”
For a while, that’s exactly what the Tigers did. Drew Anderson delivered 5⅔ innings and allowed just one earned run while walking two.
That kind of outing fit the script Hinch wanted. Anderson did run into trouble in the fourth, when he walked Kody Clemens to open the inning and Ryan Jeffers followed with an RBI double.
But Anderson kept it from getting worse by striking out Royce Lewis.
That was the point: take the hit, then stop the bleeding.
The Tigers added to the lead in the fifth with a sequence that checked a lot of Hinch’s boxes. Kevin McGonigle worked a six-pitch walk, then advanced to second on a wild pitch.
Hao-Yu Lee followed with an RBI single up the middle, and Riley Greene then doubled in Lee to make it 4-1. Later, rookie center fielder Max Clark opened the sixth with a double, and Peck lined a ball to right to bring him home for a 5-1 advantage.
“I think the young guys are holding up fine on their own,” Hinch said. “I think we need to collectively all do better at our jobs, myself included, and our coaching staff. We’re a team, and so it doesn’t fall on anybody extra.”
Still, the game tilted again once the Tigers reached the late innings. A McGonigle throwing error and a Josh Bell single helped create a mess in the sixth. Trevor Larnach doubled in a run, but Hinch brought in Tyler Kinley, who got Royce Lewis to chop a soft dribbler in front of the mound and end the threat.
Then the bullpen trouble returned in the eighth.
Drew Sommers inherited a 5-2 lead, but Brooks Lee singled and Clemens was hit by a pitch. Jeffers struck out, but Bell singled past Peck to load the bases.
Hinch then went to Kenley Jansen with one out and the bases full, and Jansen walked Victor Caratini to force in a run. Lewis followed with a single past a diving Peck that tied the game at 5-5.
Tyler Holton came in with two on and two outs and struck out Walker Jenkins to limit the damage again, but the Tigers had let another lead slip away.
The extra innings kept going back and forth. Clark put Detroit ahead in the 11th with a double to left that brought in the automatic runner, and he finished 3-for-4 with two runs, three doubles and two walks. But Kyle Finnegan worked the 11th, and Keaschall tied it with a single to right.
Finally, the Tigers broke through for good in the 12th. Torkelson, who had gone 28 straight games without a home run, connected to give Detroit the lead. Baez then cleared the bases with a three-RBI double to right field and put the game away.
In the end, the Tigers did what Hinch had been asking for: better at-bats and less damage. It just took 12 innings to fully cash it in.
The Tigers are off Thursday before a doubleheader Friday at Cleveland.
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