Tigers 4, Twins 3: Missed Chances Doom Twins in Extra-Inning Loss to Tigers

[Matthew Taylor]

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

Box Score
SP: Bailey Ober 5.1 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 4 K (89 pitches, 58 strikes)
Home Runs: Edouard Julien (4)
Bottom 3 WPA: Austin Martin -.289, Royce Lewis -.271, Alan Roden -.185
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs):

In their first home game since the Pohlad family reaffirmed their commitment to remain principal owners of the Minnesota Twins, the team delivered a gritty effort in the opener of a four game series against the Detroit Tigers, but opportunities slipped away as the night wore on. Facing one of the league’s toughest arms in Cy Young front runner Tarik Skubal, the Twins came out swinging early but couldn’t land the decisive blow.

Against what looked like an impossible assignment with Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal on the mound, the Twins broke through in the third inning. Edouard Julien opened the scoring with a solo home run, his third of the season and just the second of his career off a left handed pitcher. The inning continued with Ryan Jeffers driving in a run with an RBI groundout and rookie Luke Keaschall delivering a clutch two-out, RBI single to stretch the lead to 3-0, a cushion that would eventually disappear.

Bailey Ober, in just his third start since returning from injury, looked sharp early, retiring the first 11 batters he faced. That run ended abruptly in the fourth when Kerry Carpenter’s two out double set the stage for Riley Greene’s two run homer, slicing the Twins’ lead to a single run. Ober kept the game in check until the sixth, when a Colt Keith RBI single tied it and ended his night. He left with 5 1/3 innings pitched, four hits allowed, three runs, and 14 swinging strikes, an encouraging sign for his stuff even if the lead was gone.

The Minnesota Twins bullpen did its job, with shutout appearances from Kody Funderburk, Brooks Kriske, Michael Tonkin and Cole Sands to keep the game even. The offense, however, couldn’t capitalize.

In the ninth, Brooks Lee ripped a two out double to put the winning run in scoring position, but newly acquired Alan Roden flew out to end the threat. After Sands held the Tigers scoreless in the top of the tenth with the ghost runner aboard, the Twins were again in prime position. Gasper, who failed in a similar spot earlier this week against Kansas City, laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the runner to third with one out. Yet the moment slipped away. Austin Martin failed to execute a squeeze bunt, with Roden thrown out at the plate, and Byron Buxton lined out to end the inning.

In the top of the 11th inning, the Tigers executed in a way the Twins could not, scoring on a sacrifice fly to take the lead after an Erasmo Ramirez wild pitch. The bottom half turned heated when home plate umpire John Bacon called Ryan Jeffers out on a foul tip that appeared to have hit the ground. Rocco Baldelli stormed out to argue, furiously, and was ejected after which he threw his hat and let loose a string of expletives.

 

With two outs and a runner on third, Royce Lewis struck out on a check swing to end the game as the Twins fell 4-3. The loss dropped Minnesota to 57-64 and 4-8 in extra innings this season.

What's Next

The Twins will continue the home series tomorrow night at 7:10 p.m. with José Ureña on the mound to face long-time veteran Charlie Morton. Following the game will be a Dustin Lynch postgame concert, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Postgame Interviews

Coming soon...

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

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[AlwaysinModeration]

Buxton has to steal third base.

[Vanimal46]

If you don’t like that game, you don’t like AAAA baseball, baby! 

[Peter]

😡🤬😤🤮💩👎😭

[David HK]

5 minutes ago, Peter said:

😡🤬😤🤮💩👎😭

I concur.

[Melissa]

Disappointing after a strong start to the game.

[Aggies7]

Trying to bunt not once, but twice, with a runner at third and one out in the tenth was just crazy. 

[knothole61]

2 hours ago, AlwaysinModeration said:

Buxton has to steal third base.

Apparently he has never attempted that in his entire career--not once! Is that possible? 

[knothole61]

Some losses hurt more than others of course...and this was pretty bad. Very nice to get to Skubal, but then it's 8 goose eggs and that's unacceptable. Clearly, a win in the 10th was a very near thing with just a modicum of competence. You almost have to be trying to, to mess things up as badly as the Twins did tonight during Manfred Time.

 

[h2oface]

Ramirez wild pitch made the fly ball a sac fly. 

[Doctor Wu]

Following the game will be a Dustin Lynch postgame concert, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Admittedly, I'm an older man, but I'm also a big music fan and I have no idea who this person is! I'm not a fan of those post-games concerts in any event. I once went to a Braves game where the post-game show was the Beach Boys, and I couldn't even be bothered to stay for that. 

[shimrod]

Twins could see if Morrisey is interested in a residency at Target field to close out the season. Twins baseball to get the fans in the mood, then an hour or so of beautiful pop depression. 

[jmlease1]

Kind of loss that's representative of the Twins season: good enough to win, but managed to lose.

They did a pretty good job against Skubal, who is a beast, and exactly the kind of pitcher capable to annihilating the Twins lineup. And yet they battled well against him.

Ober was...ok? The 2-run homer was disappointing, and right now Ober seems to have these stretches where he just loses it for a bit and starts getting hit in an inning. But the changeup looked good and he overall looked more like the pitcher we've seen most of his Twins career against a good lineup. But the difference between being good and meh is whether or not you can finish off innings, and Ober couldn;t do it in the 4th.

Very good game by Julien; 2 hits vs a LHP? First dinger Skubal has given up to a LH all season? That's good work, and he played a more than credible 1B. He hasn't been hitting enough in august and needs a lot more games like this or he's going to push himself out of any Twins plans (which I'm sure is what many around here are hoping for...)

[insagt1]

Poor managing in extras. You have one of the fastest runners and successful base stealers on 2nd. You need one run. Twins offense stalled yet Buxton stays glued to 2nd. Unacceptable at any level. Use your assets for Pete's sake. If he's on 3rd he scores on Keaschalls ground ball. Thebunting strategy was fine except for poor execution. The wild pitch was the dagger and also Unacceptable in Manfred Time. It handed Tigers the game. But for me theobvious strategy for a speedy runner not to even try to steal a base is just poor baseball...losing baseball so Twins deserved their fate. The k's also didn't help. A loss that frankly should have been a win but for some sub par fundamental baseball. This one hurt.

[Linus]

Tough one. Greenes grab at the wall on Buck was a huge play. Julien had a really nice - made a couple nice plays at first. 

[TopGunn#22]

I'm not sure what Rocco's career record in one run and extra inning games is.  But I'll bet it's not very good.  

[Whitey333]

This loss was disappointing but it didn't hurt.  They are a team going nowhere and have been for a long time.  It's only with a lower payroll.  We just have a very dark period of baseball coming now that Falvey and Baldelli have  virtually been crowned as the people to steer this franchise.  What a joke.

[USAFChief]

Ober looked good for a couple innings, but his velo dropped back down into the 80s pretty quickly. The results were apparent.

As for the game result, ownership and management have stolen my capacity to care about wins and losses. I absolutely hate that 

[Blyleven2011]

21 minutes ago, TopGunn#22 said:

I'm not sure what Rocco's career record in one run and extra inning games is.  But I'll bet it's not very good.  

Rocco is not good in managing extra inning games , he definitely has more losses than wins since the stupid manfred inception ....

With that being said Rocco is not a good manager managing a 9 inning game  ...

[Maybebaby]

1 hour ago, insagt1 said:

Poor managing in extras. You have one of the fastest runners and successful base stealers on 2nd. You need one run. Twins offense stalled yet Buxton stays glued to 2nd. Unacceptable at any level. Use your assets for Pete's sake. If he's on 3rd he scores on Keaschalls ground ball. Thebunting strategy was fine except for poor execution. The wild pitch was the dagger and also Unacceptable in Manfred Time. It handed Tigers the game. But for me theobvious strategy for a speedy runner not to even try to steal a base is just poor baseball...losing baseball so Twins deserved their fate. The k's also didn't help. A loss that frankly should have been a win but for some sub par fundamental baseball. This one hurt.

I thought exactly the same thing.  Buck is 17 for 17 in steals one of the fastest players in BB and he sits still on 2B when almost any ball in play he scores if on third, game over.

[MinnInPa]

1 hour ago, jmlease1 said:

Kind of loss that's representative of the Twins season: good enough to win, but managed to lose.

They did a pretty good job against Skubal, who is a beast, and exactly the kind of pitcher capable to annihilating the Twins lineup. And yet they battled well against him.

Ober was...ok? The 2-run homer was disappointing, and right now Ober seems to have these stretches where he just loses it for a bit and starts getting hit in an inning. But the changeup looked good and he overall looked more like the pitcher we've seen most of his Twins career against a good lineup. But the difference between being good and meh is whether or not you can finish off innings, and Ober couldn;t do it in the 4th.

Very good game by Julien; 2 hits vs a LHP? First dinger Skubal has given up to a LH all season? That's good work, and he played a more than credible 1B. He hasn't been hitting enough in august and needs a lot more games like this or he's going to push himself out of any Twins plans (which I'm sure is what many around here are hoping for...)

horrible pitch by Ober on HR..3-0 lead...what cant you do there ? give up the gopher ball..and what does he do ? right down the heart of the plate letter high.. horrible pitch selection..and horrible location

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, TopGunn#22 said:

I'm not sure what Rocco's career record in one run and extra inning games is.  But I'll bet it's not very good.  

This sort of stuff can be looked up.

Rocco is 45-55 as a manager in extra inning games. Under .500 in 5 of 7 seasons (including 2025 to date)

132-131 in 1-run games. Above .500 in 4 of 7 seasons.

Also interesting, as a manager:

He's 66% as likely as the average manager to have his team attempt to steal 2nd over his career. Below MLB average in every year of his career.

38% as likely stealing 3rd. Below average every year.

58% as likely to sac bunt. Below average every year.

80 percent as likely to issue IBBs. Below average every year except 1.

20 percent above average in pinch hitters, 14 percent above average in pinch runners. Above average in 10 of 14 seasons combined for these 2 categories. 

1 percent below average in pitchers per game career, slightly above average in 3 of the last 4 years if you include 2025.

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/baldero01.shtml#all_manager_tendencies

[USAFChief]

9 minutes ago, Maybebaby said:

I thought exactly the same thing.  Buck is 17 for 17 in steals one of the fastest players in BB and he sits still on 2B when almost any ball in play he scores if on third, game over.

Two things:

Buxton has never stolen 3rd in his career. Dont know why, but it is what it is. 

Buxton was the Manfred man in the 11th. His run would have been to tie, not game over.

[jmlease1]

1 minute ago, USAFChief said:

Two things:

Buxton has never stolen 3rd in his career. Dont know why, but it is what it is. 

Buxton was the Manfred man in the 11th. His run would have been to tie, not game over.

They talked about this on the broadcast; apparently Buxton doesn't like it. It's something that he's not comfortable with. :shrug:

(I'll expect the people screaming either about how much Buxton is paid and/or blaming this on Rocco being a bad manager in 3...2...1...)

[Otaknam]

A predictable outcome, considering this team has had waaay too many games where they score several early runs and goose eggs the rest of the way. Lack of clutch hitting and pathetic RISP stats have doomed this team all year. And Lewis is a shell of what we saw a couple of years ago. What happened to him, aside from trying to pull everything and an inability to hit a breaking pitch on the outer half of the plate? Maybe I just answered my own question.

[USAFChief]

5 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

They talked about this on the broadcast; apparently Buxton doesn't like it. It's something that he's not comfortable with. :shrug:

(I'll expect the people screaming either about how much Buxton is paid and/or blaming this on Rocco being a bad manager in 3...2...1...)

Well, Rocco is a bad manager. Really bad.

But I don't think he can be blamed for Buxton not stealing 3rd.

[Otaknam]

11 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

This sort of stuff can be looked up.

Rocco is 45-55 as a manager in extra inning games  

132-131 in 1-run games.

Also interesting, as a manager:

He's 66% as likely as the average manager to have his team attempt to steal 2nd over his career. Below MLB average in every year of his career.

38% as likely stealing 3rd. Below average every year.

58% as likely to sac bunt. Below average every year.

80 percent as likely to issue IBBs. Below average every year except 1.

20 percent above average in pinch hitters, 14 percent above average in pinch runners. Above average in 10 of 14 seasons combined for these 2 categories. 

1 percent below average in pitchers per game career, slightly above average in 3 of the last 4 years if you include 2025.

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/baldero01.shtml#all_manager_tendencies

Rocco has no instincts as a manager. All decisions are based on analytics, no manager intuition required. Once in awhile he should show confidence in a starter to go another inning, despite what his computer tells him. No wonder Sonny Gray, and probably others, wanted out because Rocco didn’t trust him to pitcher deeper into games. it appears we are stuck with him going forward. 

[jmlease1]

2 minutes ago, Otaknam said:

Rocco has no instincts as a manager. All decisions are based on analytics, no manager intuition required. Once in awhile he should show confidence in a starter to go another inning, despite what his computer tells him. No wonder Sonny Gray, and probably others, wanted out because Rocco didn’t trust him to pitcher deeper into games. it appears we are stuck with him going forward. 

Can we stop with the Sonny Gray nonsense? He left because St. L offered him a lot more money and it put him closer to his home. Berrios wouldn't sign an extension because he wanted more money/years than the Twins were willing to pay, not because he "hated" Rocco. Find me ONE pitcher who left because he didn't like the manager, with actual proof, not just things you've inferred because YOU don't like the manager.

I'm pretty sure Sonny Gray has never wanted to come out of a game in his entire life, even if he'd given up 9 runs and couldn't throw a strike. So either he's hated every manager he's ever played for, or this is all just nonsense. BTW, his last season in MN, where he was the runner up for the AL Cy Young, Gray averaged 5.75 innings per start. In St. Louis the next season it was 5.92. This season it's 5.62. Does he hate Marmol now too?

[shimrod]

17 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Buxton has never stolen 3rd in his career. Dont know why, but it is what it is. 

 

According to our broadcasters Buxton believes he can score from second on a hit therefore he doesn't need to steal third.

Counting on his teammates to get a hit is where this plan falls apart. Not even Buxton is fast enough to score from second on an infield ground ball. 

When you absolutely need a run to tie the game in extras the fastest man in baseball needs to get to third, in position to score on a wild pitch, passed ball, or grounder. 

[Otaknam]

The Pohlad budget cutting, questionable front office, and inept Rocco have managed to turn a playoff team in 2023 into the shell of its former self. Sadly, if the sell off continues this winter by trading Lopez and/or Ryan, this entire group will lord over the malaise they have all contributed to.