MINNEAPOLIS _ One of the handy side effects of owning the greatest power-hitting offense in baseball history is, it's not easy to tell when you're in a slump.
The Twins, for instance, were outhit by the Tigers on Sunday, scratching out a mere five hits against Tigers lefthander Matthew Boyd. But two of those scarce hits cleared the Target Field fences with runners aboard, and Minnesota walked away with a never-in-serious-doubt 7-4 victory over Detroit.
The victory allowed the Twins to salvage a 3-3 split of their six-game homestand against the White Sox and Tigers, not exactly what they hoped for a week's worth of games with the third- and fifth-place teams in their division. But combined with Cleveland's 9-8, 10-inning loss to the Royals, it widened their AL Central lead to 3{ games, or one game larger than a week earlier.
Martin Perez continued his late August surge, limiting the Tigers to five hits over six innings. Three of those hits _ doubles by Jordy Mercer and John Hicks, and a two-out single by Harold Castro _ came in the fifth inning, accounting for two of Detroit's runs.
It was Perez's third consecutive strong start; he has allowed four earned runs in 17 innings in those three games, a 2.12 ERA that allows him to forget a rough six-week stretch that temporarily ballooned his ERA over 5.00.
Meanwhile, Boyd got himself into trouble with control problems, and made matters worse by throwing fat pitches to Twins infielders. The Tigers lefthander walked a season-high five batters and hit another, adding fuel to the Twins' home run flames.
Two runners were on base, for instance, when C.J. Cron crushed a low slider more than 410 feet over the center field fence, his 21st of the season. And two innings later, Boyd walked Cron before Jonathan Schoop blasted a pitch just inside the foul pole in left field, his 18th of the year.
Along with Mitch Garver's RBI double, and Nelson Cruz's daily run batted in _ he drove in a run in five of the six games on this homestand, seven RBIs overall _ on a ground out gave the Twins all the cushion they would need to take a two-game winning streak onto their three-city road trip, which begins Tuesday in Chicago.
Just in case the Tigers, who outhit the Twins 9-5 and added two runs in the ninth against Twins reliever Lewis Thorpe, had ideas of a big rally, Jake Cave foiled them by making a running, leaping catch of a Ronny Rodriguez blast at the left-field wall to end the eighth inning.
