MINNEAPOLIS — The Twins won Tuesday.
Just not in the game.
After a busy day of shopping the trade market, in which the Twins brought in three MLB pitchers without losing anyone on their active roster, the team dropped 5-3 to Detroit in front of 23,394 announced fans at Target Field.
The Twins, who held a one-game lead in the American League Central coming into the game, dropped to 54-49 while the last-place Tigers improved to 42-63.
After the third inning, the Twins were up 2-0 thanks to Mark Contreras' leadoff home run — his first in the majors — and a sacrifice fly from Nick Gordon. Detroit briefly tied it in the fifth inning with a pair of RBI doubles from Jonathan Schoop and Riley Greene.
But Gordon put his team ahead again at the bottom of that inning with another sacrifice fly.
The Tigers broke open the game in the seventh, with reliever Griffin Jax having an uncharacteristically off night. Eric Haase got a leadoff single and scored on Akil Baddoo's RBI base hit. Greene and Javier Baez then followed suit for three consecutive RBI singles to put the Tigers up 5-3.
Twins starter Chris Archer only went 4 1/3 innings but kept Detroit to only two hits and two runs with three walks and a season-high eight strikeouts, his most since putting up 10 in August 2019.
Detroit starter Matt Manning gave up five hits and three runs in his five innings, walking four and striking out one.
The Twins were still without center fielder Byron Buxton, who sat out a second consecutive game because of his ongoing knee injury. Outfielder Kyle Garlick also didn't play after leaving Monday's game early because of a rib injury sustained in this past weekend's Padres series.
With Alex Kirilloff also going on the 10-day injured list Tuesday, the Twins had to call up Jake Cave from Class AAA to start in left field against the Tigers. While Cave has played in nearly 300 games for the Twins in the past five seasons, Tuesday was his first MLB game this year. In his 2022 debut, he went 2-for-3 at the plate and also drew a walk.
Detroit reliever Jason Foley earned his first win for a 1-0 record. Jax took the loss to bring his record to 5-3. And Gregory Soto earned the save, his 20th this year.
