DETROIT – With injuries stacking up and losses coming in an almost unrelenting pace, a marathon five-hour road game with two rain delays was probably not what the momentum-less Minnesota Twins needed.
And yet they stayed engaged from Kyle Garlick's leadoff homer through to Caleb Thielbar's final pitch, beating the Detroit Tigers 7-3 on Friday at Comerica Park in the first game of a three-game series. The Twins improved to 12-19 with the victory over a team that, at 9-24, is the only one in the AL with a record worse than theirs.
Jorge Polanco followed the theme Garlick set hitting his own leadoff homer 375 feet to left-center in the second inning.
But as has been the case in many games this year, in the middle innings the offense lulled. And then the rain started to fall; the first one was 35 minutes in the middle of the fifth inning. Matt Shoemaker returned to the mound after it was over, pitching a scoreless fifth to put him in position to earn his second victory of the season.
In the top of the sixth, the Twins added two runs after Polanco and Miguel Sano walked. They came around to score on Max Kepler's single and Andrelton Simmons' groundout, respectively.
Shoemaker had his best start since his first one in Detroit, pitching five shutout innings and giving up four hits with two walks and five strikeouts. The Michigan native made his season debut at Detroit, giving up one run in six innings in a 15-6 victory April 5, but he hadn't won since.
The team's bullpen troubles made a return in the sixth inning, however. Cody Stashak entered in the sixth inning and gave up a leadoff single to Jeimer Candelario before walking Miguel Cabrera, who reached base four times Friday after starting the day hitting .098. Willi Castro followed with a three-run homer, pulling the Tigers within 4-3. Stashak also gave up a double to Akil Baddoo, ending the former Twins prospect's streak of 21 at-bats without a hit.
That was followed by another rain delay, this one lasting an hour and 9 minutes. But the Twins returned by scoring a big run when Polanco drove in Josh Donaldson with a two-out double.
Alexander Colome came in a pitched a clean seventh inning before Max Kepler hit a home run to lead off the eighth, driving one 422 feet to right field. Hansel Robles pitched around a leadoff walk to Cabrera in the eighth, Sano hit a two-out, line-drive single in the ninth inning to make it a four-run lead and Caleb Thielbar pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to end the game.
Catcher Mitch Garver left the game in the bottom of the eighth inning with right shoulder inflammation and is day-to-day.
