Detroit — The Tigers were trying to beat two things on Sunday: Mother Nature and the Twins.
They ended up beating themselves.
A pair of misplays at third base by Nick Maton proved costly and the Tigers fell to the AL Central-leading Twins, 6-3, in a 10-inning series finale at Comerica Park, which started an hour and a half earlier due to inclement weather that was set to hit Metro Detroit.
BOX SCORE: Twins 6, Tigers 3 (10 innings)
Maton’s two miscues in the field led to the game-tying and go-ahead runs scoring in the final three innings. Coupled with his continued struggles at the plate, Tigers manager AJ Hinch made the move to option Maton to Triple-A Toledo after the game.
“Everybody is going to see today was a bad day for him, and that’s only part of it,” Hinch said. “I think this has started to build a little bit. We think he can make the adjustment and most of the time we talk about that being offensive adjustments. In this sense, I think it’s a little bit of both.
“He needs a mental reset. … It’s tough coming off a game like today, but it was necessary.”
Hinch noted he had an “emotional” postgame meeting with Maton in his office to break the news that he was being sent down to the Mud Hens, who are off until Wednesday.
“We have total confidence in him. This was unexpected to be at this point, but those adjustments need to be made,” Hinch said. “The best environment for that is in Toledo where he can be a little bit out of the spotlight, can be a little bit more free to play every single day and get every single rep and not continue to drag the struggles of the previous day or the previous series or previous week into the next at-bat or the next rep.”
Hinch said Maton understood why he was being sent down. The Tigers (33-43) will wait until Monday to make a corresponding move.
Maton took the demotion in stride and acknowledged he needs to get better in order to help the team. He summarized Hinch’s message was to “get right.”
“Obviously I’ve struggled a lot, but I know the player I can be. Everyone knows the player I can be,” said Maton, who is batting .163 and had one of the Tigers’ six hits Sunday. “Maybe this will help me out. I’m not going to sulk around about it.
“I can bring a lot of things to the team. I just really haven’t this year yet. Maybe this will be a spark for me.”
The Tigers were clinging to a 3-2 lead late until things started to go awry. With two outs in the eighth, Royce Lewis drew a five-pitch walk from Jose Cisnero and pinch-hitter Ryan Jeffers singled off Chasen Shreve.
Shreve then got former Tiger Willi Castro to hit a chopper to Maton at third, which should’ve ended the inning. But Maton’s throw was off the mark and sailed past first baseman Spencer Torkelson, allowing Lewis to score.
“It’s very frustrating because we made the wrong mistake at the wrong time,” Hinch said. “What I saw was just an errant throw. … He had plenty of time. It was just an error. It was a bad time to make a bad error with where the game was and in a one-run game.”
Added Maton: “Just slipped out of my hands. Can’t happen in a big situation like that.”
Then in the 10th inning, Maton whiffed on a grounder hit by Lewis. The ball trickled into left field and Carlos Correa, racing home from second base, scored on a close play at the plate.
The Twins (40-39) tacked on two more runs on RBI singles from Castro and Christian Vazquez to pour salt in the wound.
“Some of the misplays, that cost us pitches today,” Hinch said. “It also brings back those guys up in the batting order in the 10th inning. Their mistakes compound as you go along in the game, and they accumulate. It put them right in the heart of their order and it’s tough.”
All of the Tigers’ offensive production came during a three-run third inning against Twins starter Bailey Ober. Matt Vierling led things off with a single and Jake Rogers followed with a double to deep left field, putting two runners in scoring position with no outs.
Zach McKinstry cashed in on the opportunity with a two-run double down the right-field line. Two batters later, Kerry Carpenter singled through the right side and McKinstry beat the throw to home plate, giving the Tigers a 3-2 lead.
The Tigers, however, couldn’t muster much after that and only put multiple runners on base one more time in the seventh inning.
“We didn’t create a lot of momentum against Ober after the one inning when we had some pretty good at-bats,” Hinch said. “After that, you want to try to build a little momentum, maybe get him out of the game and make them use the middle part of their bullpen. … Creating opportunities was hard to come by with Ober. It’s been that way for him across the league.”
The Twins struck first and a took a 2-0 lead when Donovan Solano launched a 1-1 slider from starter Michael Lorenzen 420 feet into the left-center field seats for a two-run shot in the third.
Minnesota threatened in the next two innings, but Lorenzen escaped unscathed. With runners on first and second with two outs, shortstop Javier Báez made a diving play up the middle and pump-faked an underhand toss to second before firing a bullet to first to end the inning.
Then in the fifth, Lorenzen ran into a first-and-third situation against Correa after giving up back-to-back, one-out hits to Edouard Julien and Solano. But Lorenzen worked out of the jam by getting Correa to bounce into a 6-4-3 double play, preserving a one-run lead that the Tigers coughed up late on Maton’s mistakes.
“I should have made a couple plays and I didn’t,” said Maton, whose seven errors rank second on the team. “It wears on you. I go out there single day trying to put forth the best version of myself and I haven’t been lately.”
jhawkins@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @jamesbhawkins