MINNEAPOLIS — Gio Urshela slammed a two-run home run in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Twins a 5-3 win over the Tigers.
The Tigers had gone up 3-2 in the top of the inning on an RBI single by Akil Baddoo.
The best way to describe Tarik Skubal’s abbreviated outing Monday night was fierce.
He was knocking hitters off the plate with fastballs in and sliders at their feet. He was bullying them with fastballs (his two-seamer hit 97 mph) and teasing them with changeups and knuckle curves.
He blanked the Central Division-leading Twins on three hits over five innings in an efficient 77 pitches. He hasn't given up an earned run in 17 innings.
But as he walked back to the dugout with a 2-0 lead after stranding a runner at third in the fifth, manager AJ Hinch gave him a fist-bump and a pat on the back – night over.
With the trade deadline looming Tuesday, it made you wonder. But that wasn’t it. Skubal’s velocity had dipped to the low-90s. The Tigers said he left the game with arm fatigue.
That 2-0 lead didn't hold up.
The Twins banged out four straight singles against reliever Michael Fulmer in the bottom of the eighth. Rookie Jose Miranda dropped a broken-bat, two-run single into right field to tie the game.
Lefty Gregory Soto got the Tigers out of the eighth and then had to extricate himself out of serious trouble in the ninth. Nick Gordon reached on a swinging bunt and Gary Sanchez singled.
With one out, Jorge Polanco drove one to the track in center. Riley Greene ran it down and Gordon went to third. Soto walked Carlos Correa on a 3-2 pitch in the dirt. The ball bounced away from catcher Tucker Barnhart and Gordon took several steps toward the plate.
Barnhart recovered quickly and threw Gordon out trying to scamper back to third base.
Huge out, especially with dangerous Luis Arraez coming up.
A very unlikely source in the Tigers' lineup accounted for the first two runs. In the 64 games he’d played coming into the game Monday – 198 plate appearances – Barnhart had knocked in just nine runs.
Make that 11.
He plated a run with a ground out in the second inning and then dunked a two-out single into center field to score Miguel Cabrera from second in the fourth inning. Both of those runs were against Twins starter Aaron Sanchez, who was just called up from Triple-A Rochester.
