Tigers wind up on top in roller-coaster ride against Twins, 8-5

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Aug 16, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — This one meandered a bit, but it ended up where the Tigers needed it to be.

In the win column.

Clutch hits by Trey Sweeney and Jahmai Jones in the seventh inning broke a 3-3 tie and the Tigers held on for a high-anxiety 8-5 win over the Minnesota Twins Saturday at Target Field.

Clinging to a one-run lead, reliever Will Vest, who stranded the tying run at third base in the seventh, struck out Brooks Lee with the bases loaded to end the eighth. Pivotal.

The Twins gifted the Tigers a pair of insurance runs in the top of the ninth, which eased the stress on Kyle Finnegan, who earned his fourth save as a Tiger.

Twins reliever Justin Topa threw errantly to first, a three-base error that allowed Zach McKinstry to score from second and Trey Sweeney, who had tapped back to Topa, to race around to third.

He scored on a single by Jones.

It was the Tigers' third straight win over the Twins and their sixth win in the last seven games. It also extended their lead in the Central Division to 8.5 games.

They left 14 runners on base, which added some angst, but they kept flooding the base paths with runners until the big hits came.

Down 3-2 after five innings, Sweeney led off the top of the sixth with a double off the wall in right-center off reliever Travis Adams and scored the tying run on a sacrifice fly by Riley Greene.

In the seventh, Wenceel Perez led off with a double and went to third on a groundout by McKinstry. After Dillon Dingler worked a 12-pitch walk, Sweeney, with the infield pulled in, slammed a ball, 100.6 mph off his bat, that went past third baseman Royce Lewis for an RBI single.

The Twins brought in lefty Kody Funderburk to face Colt Keith. Tigers manager AJ Hinch countered with right-handed pinch-hitter Jones. With two strikes, Jones lined an RBI double and Sweeney ended up scoring on a wild pitch.

The 6-3 lead seemed cushy. It was not.

Tigers starter Casey Mize, who struck out a career-high-tying 10 batters, exited the game with a runner on and one out in the bottom of the seventh.

Lefty Tyler Holton promptly gave up a double to lefty Matt Wallner. After a run scored on a groundout, Holton walked Lewis.

It looked like Holton was going to get a bailout from first baseman Spencer Torkelson, who made an outstanding diving stop of a hard-hit ball down the line by lefty James Outman.

But Holton was unable to catch the throw at first base and was charged with an error, allowing Wallner to score.

It was a 6-5 game.

The Tigers, by all rights, should’ve been up comfortably when Mize took the mound in the fifth inning.

They were up 2-0 on an RBI single by Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter’s 22nd home run.

But they left eight runners on base in the first five innings, even failing to score with the bases loaded and no outs in the fifth. McKinstry hit a line drive right into the glove of first baseman Kody Clemens, who was standing inches off the bag and doubled-up Perez.

Dingler, who entered the game hitting .400 with runners in scoring position and two outs, battled for 10 pitches before lining softly to second base.

Twins starter Zebby Matthews gave up five hits and four walks and threw 92 pitches in just four innings, but only gave up the two runs. The Tigers walked nine times in the game.

Still, it was a 2-0 lead and Mize had dominated the Twins, facing the minimum 12 batters through four innings with six strikeouts.

Four batters into the fifth, the Twins were leading 3-2.

It started, as it tends to do, with a leadoff walk. Then Ryan Jeffers blooped a two-strike single to left. After striking out Wallner, Mize fell behind 2-0 on Lee.

Bad plan.

Lee smoked a slider that caught too much of the plate and knocked it off the ball in right-center. It probably should have been a double, but both center fielder Perez and right fielder Carpenter both tracked it to the wall, neither able to play the carom.

It ended up a two-run triple for Lee and he scored the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly by Lewis.