In a thrilling showdown at Target Field, the Detroit Tigers managed to hold off the Minnesota Twins for an 8-7 victory on Wednesday. The star of the night was undoubtedly Spencer Torkelson, who hit two home runs against Minnesota for the second time in just a week.
Torkelson’s first homer came in the seventh inning when he sent Griffin Jax’s 1-1 sweeper soaring into left-field seats. This four-run inning gave Detroit a 6-4 lead and marked Torkelson’s fourth career multi-homer game – his previous one also being against the Twins last Wednesday.
Despite not feeling his best at bat, Torkelson has been on fire recently with six homers in his past seven games. “I feel like I can still compete up there and get the job done,” said Torkelson, who now leads Tigers with 20 home runs this season – making him only the seventh player in club history to achieve this feat during their age-23 season.
The Tigers’ bullpen also deserves credit for their performance. Relievers Beau Brieske, Tyler Holton, Alex Lange and Will Vest combined efforts resulted in over five innings of scoreless relief. Holton (2-2) particularly shone by striking out five batters over perfect innings to earn himself a win.
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Detroit as Jason Foley gave up back-to-back homers in ninth inning which almost cost them their lead. But Donovan Solano grounded into a double play to end what could have been a disastrous game for them.
Despite losing this match-up against divisional rival Detroit, Twins (63-59) remain four games ahead of Cleveland for AL Central lead while Tigers are trailing eight behind Guardians with an 8-5 record against Minnesota this year.
Twins’ Kenta Maeda had another solid outing giving up three or fewer runs for tenth straight time tying Cleveland’s Tanner Bibee’s longest active streak among AL starters but it wasn’t enough to secure victory as they fell short by one run despite leading early on by four runs thanks to Eduardo Julien’s three singles and Jorge Polanco’s RBI sacrifice fly.
Looking forward towards next matches; Detroit will face off against Guardians starting Thursday while Twins will host Pittsburgh after taking Thursday off.