Tigers fall to Twins after late-inning 'mess'

MINNEAPOLIS -- Jorge Polanco’s go-ahead three-run home run Saturday off Joe Jiménez cleared the right-field porch at Target Field with a 106.9 mph exit velocity, according to Statcast. Any remaining possibility for Detroit to take momentum into the All-Star break arguably went with it.

One inning later, Jonathan Schoop’s 117.1 mph leadoff double put him in position for the Tigers to answer, but they couldn’t get him home.

What looked like an opportunity for the Tigers to creep closer to .500 against the last-place Twins this weekend has turned into three consecutive losses, all off middle to late-inning rallies. The latest was Saturday's 9-4 defeat in which the Twins scored nine unanswered runs off Detroit relievers, turning a surprisingly strong bullpen start into the Tigers’ first series loss since dropping three of four to the Angels in mid-June.

“The back half of this game was a mess,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “We didn’t do a lot right.”

The Tigers could still salvage a 3-4 road trip if they can take Sunday’s series finale. They’ll also open the season’s second half next weekend against the Twins at home, plus a rematch against a Rangers club they beat twice in three games earlier this week in Texas. Detroit doesn’t have a team currently holding a winning record on its schedule until the Red Sox visit Comerica Park the first week of August.

However, this weekend shows the danger of facing struggling teams at the right time and not capitalizing on opportunities. The Tigers have outscored the Twins by a 6-1 margin over the first five innings through three games this series, only to be outscored 17-3 from the sixth inning on. More than half of the runs allowed came Saturday.

“You can win a game with a guy having a bad game here or there, or being able to escape when you get a run-scoring lead like we did. But when multiple guys have tough days, it is hard to mix and match perfectly,” Hinch said. “But it’s our reality. It’s where we are, and quite honestly, where we’re likely to be here moving forward. Our guys will bounce back and throw the ball well, but it’s not easy.”

Saturday was arguably the most surprising on both ends, but also the risk and reward of a bullpen start. The Tigers skipped struggling José Ureña in this series to line him up for the first game out of the break next Friday. Kyle Funkhouser, Daniel Norris and Erasmo Ramírez combined to hold Minnesota to no runs on three hits with five strikeouts over the first five innings. Back-to-back home runs from Niko Goodrum and Zack Short, a Harold Castro RBI single and a sac fly by Short built a 4-0 lead.

But Funkhouser’s 2 1/3 scoreless innings at the front end came at a price at the back, where he has become one of Hinch’s trusted relievers. Once Alex Kirilloff’s two-run homer off Ramírez put the Twins on the board in the sixth, the momentum shifted.

“These bullpen starts, it takes a lot of guys to have good days to get through these unscathed,” Hinch said. “And we were close.”

With Funkhouser already used, the Tigers’ two-run lead in the seventh inning went to Jiménez, whose success in recent weeks has dissipated in back-to-back outings. Andrelton Simmons’ one-out infield single and Luis Arraez’s line drive through the middle brought the go-ahead run to the plate in Polanco, who crushed a 94 mph fastball over the fence.

It was the sixth home run off Jiménez in his career at Target Field, twice as many as he has allowed at any other visiting ballpark. His nine home runs to Twins hitters are nearly double his total against his next-closest opponent, the White Sox (five).

Schoop’s leadoff double off Alexander Colomé in the eighth provided an opportunity for the Tigers to respond. But after Robbie Grossman’s groundout moved Schoop to third with one out, Colomé struck out Eric Haase and Jeimer Candelario to preserve Minnesota’s lead.

“Colomé’s a veteran guy. He’s going to cut the ball quite a bit,” Hinch said. “It looked like Haase missed a couple of pitches that he could’ve put in play. He was pounding it on the ground, so we may have had a play at the plate. But contact’s your friend, a lot, and certainly they know that. Haase got surprised by a fastball in late, it looked like, and Candy swung and missed at a few pitches out of the strike zone. Those big at-bats were difference makers.”

A four-run Twins eighth inning helped by two Tiger errors on pitches put in play stretched the game out of reach.