MINNEAPOLIS _ Matthew Boyd was in the middle of being a pain in the Twins sides for the second time in less than a week, but things were about to change.
On the mound in the seventh, Tyler Austin blasted a 458-foot home run off of him. Jake Cave dumped a single to center. Johnny Field was hit by a pitch. Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire went to the mound and took the left-hander out of the game, replacing him with right-hander Louis Coleman.
Detroit does not have a left-handed reliever on its roster. That made Paul Molitor's decision to pinch hit Joe Mauer for Ehire Adrianza a no-brainer. And that set the stage for Mauer's second pinch-hit home run of his career.
Mauer worked the count to 3-2, and Coleman gave Mauer a fastball as hittable as can be _ right down the heart of the plate. Mauer pounded it into the seats above the right-field scoreboard for a three-run homer that propelled the Twins to a 5-3 win over the Tigers. The Twins have won the first two games of this four-game series.
The pinch-hit home run was just the second in Mauer's career, the other coming May 25, 2009, when he connected off of Boston's Jonathan Papelbon in the Metrodome.
Molitor looked into his closerless bullpen and selected right-hander Matt Magill. He gave up an RBI single to Ronny Rodriguez and was a strike away from ending the game, but walked Victor Reyes at the end of a 13-pitch at-bat to put two on. Taylor Rogers replaced him and got Jeimer Candelario to ground out to notch his first career save.
The Twins took apart Detroit pitchers on Thursday while scoring a season-high 15 runs, and entered Friday's game against the Tigers with confidence after using the whole field as well as they have all year.
But then they ran into the approach-busting Boyd on Friday. And the parades around the bases were reduced. Boyd shut down the Twins offense while the Tigers scored twice in the fourth and once in the sixth to take a 3-0 lead into the late innings.
He's been very effective against the Twins lately.
Mitch Garver smacked a triple off of Boyd to open the second inning on Sunday in Detroit and scored on a sacrifice fly. Boyd handled the Twins from there, leaving after six innings with just one earned run allowed. And Garver was the last Twin to get a hit off him.
Move ahead to Friday, with Boyd on the mound at Target Field. He faced one over the minimum the first time through the order _ the only baserunner coming when he hit Cave with a pitch in the second inning. When Boyd struck out Miguel Sano on a curveball to end the fourth, he was the 27th consecutive Twin to record an out against Boyd, going back to Sunday. A no-hitter consisting of parts of two outings.
"The combination of pitches that he has," Molitor said before the game. "I think he hides the ball well, first of all, which causes his velocity to play up. He's not afraid to pitch in to righties. He can elevate with two strikes. And that breaking ball comes out of that same release point and you get expansion on top with velocity and below with chocking down on the change-up.
"When we have done well, we had been patient getting into hitting counts and then make him throw it over."
Twins right-hander Kyle Gibson attempted to duel with Boyd, getting Detroit to hit into four double plays over the first five innings. But Detroit scored twice in the fourth on a wild pitch and RBI single, then added another in the sixth on Nick Castellanos' RBI single.
But Eddie Rosario homered off Boyd in the sixth to get the Twins within 3-1, then the Twins knocked Boyd out of the game in the seventh. And ended up with a matchup in their favor.
