Twins lose to Tigers in 13 innings, 10-9
It took nearly five hours to finish the game, but in the end it was a home run by Gerald Laird in the 13th inning that won the game for the Detroit Tigers 10-9 over the Minnesota Twins Thursday night.
The Twins had to lean on their bullpen rather early in the game when starting pitcher Scott Baker had to leave after two innings with pain in his elbow. Jeff Manship pitched well in long relief of Baker. After Jon Rauch pitched a scoreless seventh inning the Twins looked to take a comfortable 7-3 lead in to the eighth inning.
In the eighth, however, everything fell apart for the Twins bullpen. Randy Flores got one out before allowing one run to score, a home run by Jhonny Peralta. Matt Guerrier took over for Flores and gave up a home run to Ryan Raburn and a two-RBI single to Will Rhymes to tie the game 7-7.
Alexi Casilla put the Twins back in front in the bottom of the eighth with a RBI single to make the score 8-7, Twins. However, the bullpen was credited for the second blown save of the day after Jesse Crain gave up the tying run in the top of the ninth, a home run by Casper Wells.
Minnesota resorted to using starting pitchers in relief after watching two of their relievers blow leads. Brian Duensing pitched two innings of relief giving up four hits and one run. The last time he pitched in relief was 18 July against the Chicago White Sox; he went four innings to earn the win then. Nick Blackburn pitched the 13th inning and got the loss after giving up the home run to Gerald Laird.
“They missed double-play chances, we missed double-play chances,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “A lot of crazy things happened in the game after that and that’s why you end up having to figure out some crazy things here and using all kinds of pitchers.”
With the loss the Twins dropped to 77-57 on the year, and saw their lead in the AL Central fall to three and a half games over the idle Chicago White Sox.
Minnesota will start a three game series with the AL West leading Texas Rangers on Friday. Nick Blackburn was scheduled to take the mound for the Twins, but after pitching during Thursday night’s game will be pushed back. The Twins will likely call up a pitcher from the minors to start Friday against Derek Holland for the Rangers.
Minnesota leads the season series with the Rangers 4-3.
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