Twins open series vs. Tigers with 4-1 victory

Phil Miller, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Jun 27, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — The Twins beat the Detroit Tigers for the 500th time since they moved to Minnesota in 1961, and this one was no more important than the previous 499.

So says Rocco Baldelli. Got it? So put down those AL Central standings, which don’t matter in June.

Byron Buxton cracked 425-foot homer over the bullpens in left field, slid home two innings later on the Twins’ first successful squeeze bunt in nearly two years, and Brooks Lee drove in a pair of runs with a double and single, earning the Twins a 4-1 win at Comerica Park. It even gave the Twins a positive record all time in Detroit, at 237-236-1.

And this is the part to keep to yourself: The Twins pulled within 10 1/2 games of the runaway first-place Tigers, a positive first step during a weekend where getting swept might have all but eliminated the Twins from the AL Central race.

Whoops.

“That’s the furthest thing from relevant, in my opinion. We just worry about today,” Baldelli insisted before the game. “If that was on anybody’s mind here, that would be an incredibly unproductive way to prepare for today’s game. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be thinking anything like that.”

But he’s got a point: Players like David Festa had a bigger reason than midseason standings to focus on. Like, keeping his job.

It may not have been that critical, but Festa was coming off an eight-run disaster against Milwaukee, and now taking on the American League’s highest-scoring team. He must not have thought about it that way — because Festa was brilliant.

The second-year right-hander faced 20 Tigers and retired 17 of them, a dozen of them in a row. The lone Tiger to reach third base against him was Spencer Torkelson, clipped by a fastball in the second inning. He moved to third on Dillon Dingler’s two-out single, but Festa simply got Parker Meadows to knock the ball back to him, ending the inning.

When Festa allowed a second hit, Gleyber Torres’ two-out single in the sixth inning, he was pulled, the Twins’ trust in him facing hitters a third time still dictating his usage. But Danny Coulombe retired pinch-hitter Jahmai Jones on a forecourt to end the “threat.”

The Tigers’ lone run came when Colt Keith tripled to right off Griffin Jax in the eighth, followed by an RBI single by Torres. But Jax struck out the final two batters of the inning, shouting at himself as he walked off the mound.