MINNEAPOLIS — The Twins hit seven home runs Wednesday at Target Field, including four in the eighth inning. It wasn't enough.
Detroit scored eight runs in the fourth inning to take a 10-0 lead, then held on to beat the Twins 17-14.
The Tigers won two of three in the series as the Twins fell deeper into last place in the American League Central.
Ryan Jeffers hit a grand slam and a two-run homer for the Twins, and Miguel Sano also homered twice. Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco and Brent Rooker also connected.
The game, played on a steamy day in Minneapolis, had a bit of everything.
Things got weird in the fourth inning, which lasted nearly an hour. Detroit, already leading 2-0, hung eight runs on the Twins in the fourth. Seven of them were allowed by starting lefthander J.A. Happ. Oh, and those seven also came with no outs.
It was the latest in a string of disappointing starts for Happ. In his three innings of work Wednesday, he faced 23 batters. He gave up 10 hits, four walks and struck out two. In his first five games of the year, Happ threw 28⅓ innings with six earned runs for a 1.91 ERA. In his last 14, he's pitched 70 innings and allowed 68 earned runs. That's an ERA of 8.74.
Down 10-0, the Twins got six in the bottom of the fourth. Sanó led off with a home run. The next three batters singled, and Jeffers came to the plate with the bases loaded. He hit a 418-foot grand slam, the first of his career and the third by a catcher in this series.
Beau Burrows, the former Tigers righthander who was recalled Tuesday when Taylor Rogers went on the injured list, replaced Happ in the fourth and pitched the fifth. He got out of that inning with a strikeout and a walk, but wasn't so lucky in the sixth. The Tigers scored three runs on two hits and made it 13-6.
The Tigers bullpen almost gave it all away. With no outs in the bottom of the eighth, Buck Farmer gave up two consecutive home runs to Kepler and Rooker. Farmer walked Polanco and was pulled in favor of Joe Jimenez. Sanó crushed the first pitch he saw for his second home run of the game. It traveled 473 feet at 114 miles per hour, the longest home run of the season for the Twins.
Willians Astudillo doubled with one out, and Jeffers hit his second homer of the game. What was once a 10-0 game was not-so-suddenly 13-12.
It was the first time the Twins had four homers in an inning since May 2, 1992, when Shane Mack, Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek and Randy Bush homered in an inning at Yankee Stadium.
But Juan Minaya gave up a three-run double to Eric Haase in the top of the ninth, and Jeimer Candelario doubled in Haase to make it 17-12.
Polanco hit a two-run shot off All-Star closer Gregory Soto in the ninth.
The game lasted four hours and three minutes.
