Saturday’s matchup with the Minnesota Twins felt like “must win” territory for the Tigers. Unfortunately, they blew two leads, with the offense squandering scoring chances and the bullpen melted down to lose this one in walkoff fashion by a score of 4-3.
For six innings, Kenta Maeda and Tigers’ rookie Tarik Skubal gave us a fantastic pitching duel with very contrasting styles. The precision of Maeda’s splitter-slider heavy approach carried him through six frames, while the power of Skubal’s heater did the same for him. Ultimately things came down to a battle of the bullpens.