Minneapolis — The Tigers were walking a shaky tightrope coming into this series with the Central Division-leading Twins.
Which made their come-from-behind 8-4 win in the series opener at Target Field Thursday so, well, stabilizing.
“That was awesome,” said Spencer Torkelson, who delivered a clinching, two-run double in the top of the ninth. “Not only did we string some good at-bats together, but Matt Boyd really settled in. He gave up a couple of runs with some two-strike mistakes, but he really bounced back and kept us in the game.
“We were never out of it.”
Boyd, by grinding through six innings, not only kept the Tigers in the game, he might’ve helped keep them in this series.
“Had he not collected himself there early,” manager AJ Hinch said, “we would’ve been in trouble.”
Here’s why:
With five starting pitchers on the injured list, the Tigers have been getting by with a four-man starting rotation, using a bullpen game every fifth game. With the rainout Tuesday, they had to start two of the four starters to get through the subsequent double-header Wednesday.
Which left them having to deploy bullpen games in two of the four games against the Twins, Friday and Sunday. Not ideal, especially with Joey Wentz slated to pitch Saturday. He hasn’t completed five innings in his last six starts.
All of which put an inordinate amount of weight on Boyd’s start Thursday.
“Tonight is really where our focus is and on Matt Boyd,” Hinch said before the game. “Our pitching staff is going to be under a lot of pressure, just generally, facing this team, and with the volume of innings that we’re going to need until things stabilize.
“But we’re going to have to read and react as we go. We have nothing up our sleeve. We don’t know how it’s going to play out until we see how we use the bullpen tonight. That will dictate how we use the game tomorrow.”
You should know, though, Boyd didn’t feel any of that extra weight.
“My job is to go out and, regardless of what’s happening, just keep pitching,” he said. “Just keep pitching and let AJ pull me off the mound. Just keep going regardless of the circumstances.”
It didn’t look good for a minute, especially when Boyd laid a two-strike changeup over the heart of the plate to Donovan Solano, who sent it into the seats in left-center, a three-run homer in a four-run second inning.
More: A’s moving to Vegas conjures polar emotions in Tigers’ Shreve, Hinch
But Boyd rallied. He didn’t allow another run, grinding through six innings. He posted eight strikeouts and left with the Tigers ahead 5-4.
“Just stay the course, stay with my process and it worked out well,” said Boyd, who got 16 swinging strikes and 11 called strikes. “I felt good. It’s unfortunate they hit those mistakes in the second inning. A three-run homer is never ideal. That’s tough. But I felt good with my fastball, curveball, slider and changeup. We used it all and got swings and misses with everything.
“It was solid.”
Bottom-line, he saved the bullpen, put his team in a position to win Thursday and gave the bullpen a fighting chance to maybe get through the next three games.
“We wanted to win tonight, first of all,” Hinch said. “We were trying to get as much out of Matt as we could as he was throwing the ball better. But I wasn’t going to give him another time through their order at the top. He gave us the six innings that we really wanted and we were super fresh out of the bullpen with Will Vest.”
Going to the right-hander Vest, Hinch know that Twins manager Rocco Baldelli would counter with left-handed hitters Edouard Julien and Joey Gallo. No problem. Vest dispatched the Twins on 14 pitches. Right-hander Jason Foley, firing a barrage of 98-mph sinkers, pitched a clean eighth in 15 pitches.
“It worked out how we would’ve mapped it out,” HInch said, saving Alex Lange for the ninth.
The Tigers scored 12 runs in two losses against the Braves Wednesday and they stayed hot, chasing Twins starter Sonny Gray in four innings, working four walks and forcing him to throw 79 pitches.
“This was an extension of how we’ve swung the bats the last couple of games,” Hinch said. “We came up with some big, two-out hits. Falling behind like we did, we still maintained our discipline, drawing a few walks and working the ball toward the middle of the field. A lot of guys did some really good things.”
After scoring single runs in the first and fourth, Javier Báez tied the game with a two-run triple off left-handed reliever Jovani Moran in the fifth. He scored on a ground out by Eric Haase.
“We know it’s in there,” Báez said of the Tigers’ recent offensive burst. “We just have to take it out there as a team and do the simple things. Once we get on base, we’ve got to do the small things to get the runners in.”
Báez, who has hit safely in eight of his last nine games, had two hits. and scored two runs. He put himself in scoring position in the third inning by pulling off a delayed steal. Then after his two-run triple, he got a huge jump and scored without a throw on a ground ball to second baseman Kyle Farmer, who was playing in on the grass.
“It was a situation and I was going on contact,” he said. “I had a pretty good jump but I was surprised he didn’t throw.”
Matt Vierling was on base four times with three singles and a walk. He knocked in the Tigers’ first run.
The Tigers took the air out of this one in the ninth, ripping three doubles off reliever Pablo Lopez. Jake Rogers’ double set up the inning. With two outs, Torkelson ripped a first-pitch, 96-mph sinker into the gap in left-center. With first base open, Torkelson might’ve been thinking Lopez would pitch around him and take a passive approach.
Not a chance.
“He’s got a good fastball and I was looking for something out and over the plate,” Torkelson said. “It just so happened to be the first pitch. But I would’ve waited to the fifth pitch if that’s when it was.”
Give Hinch a hat-tip for the fourth run in the ninth. He had inserted Zack Short into the game for defensive purposes the previous inning, but he double-switched with outfielder Jake Marisnick. Normally Hinch makes the changes straight up. This time he put Short into the No. 3 hole and Marisnick in the No. 6 hole, knowing there’d be a chance for Short to hit in the ninth.
Short plated Torkelson with a ringing double.
“I maybe didn’t anticipate that exact situation but I knew I wanted Shorty up to bat if they went to a couple of different things in the pen,” Hinch said. “Nothing against Jake, but I wanted to put him in the order where if a big spot came up, we love Shorty in there. He’s been a really good hitter this year.”
The Tigers on this night didn’t look like a team that had lost 11 of its last 12.
“It’s all contagious,” Torkelson said. “I don’t think you lose it overnight and I don’t think you get it back overnight. It’s contagious and we’re trying to ride that wave of consistency right now.”
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky