DETROIT — Riley Greene broke up a pitcher’s duel with a sixth-inning homer and the Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins 3-0 on Thursday.
Detroit’s third straight victory gave the Tigers a 3-1 win of the work-week series.
“We really didn’t have a great game on Monday, but we bounced back and fought hard for these three wins,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We had timely hits, guys were making good plays all over the defense and we obviously pitched really well.
“But we’ll see these guys again in a few days in Minnesota.”
Minnesota had won five straight after taking Monday’s opener.
“We came in playing good and we played well in the first game,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “After that, we just didn’t give ourselves enough opportunities.”
PHOTOS: Riley Greene, Reese Olson help Tigers win series against Twins
The Twins had two singles, the last in the fifth inning.
“We were trying to do a difficult thing - winning a game without scoring,” Baldelli said. “That’s not going to work out.”
Reese Olson (2-5) pitched six scoreless innings, allowing two hits and three walks while striking out eight.
With set-up man Jason Foley on bereavement leave and closer Alex Lange dealing with control issues, Hinch had to improvise with the back end of his bullpen. Chasen Shreve pitched the seventh, and converted starter Beau Brieske pitched the last two innings for his second save.
“Reese getting through six was huge, because it let us use Shreve where we wanted and have Beau for the eighth,” Hinch said. “I didn’t know what we would do for the ninth, but Beau was so good that we didn’t have to worry about it.”
Kenta Maeda (3-7) took the loss despite only allowing Greene’s homer in his six innings. He gave up three hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
Maeda and Olson traded scoreless innings until Greene hit his homer to left-centerfield with two out in the sixth.
The Twins had runners on the corners with one out in the fourth, but Olson struck out Ryan Jeffers before Matt Wallner popped out.
There was a similar situation in the fifth with a perfectly executed hit-and-run putting Joey Gallo on third and Christian Vazquez on first, but Olson struck out Edouard Julien and got Jorge Polanco to ground out.
Detroit added two runs against Minnesota reliever Dylan Floro in the seventh. With one out, Kerry Carpenter singled, Javier Baez bunted for a base hit and Jake Rogers loaded the bases with another single.
Zack McKinstry hit a two-run double before Floro got out of the inning.
“That was huge to get a couple extra runs on the scoreboard,” he said. “After that, we could just let Beau Brieske do his thing.”
BULLPEN WOES
Along with Foley and Lange being unavailable, Hinch couldn’t go to his third late-inning reliever as Tyler Holton got seven outs on Wednesday to record his first career win.
UP NEXT
The Twins continue their road trip Friday in Philadelphia, where LHP Dallas Keuchel (0-0, 1.80) will pitch against LHP Cristopher Sanchez (0-3, 3.44) in the opener.
Detroit starts a three-city trip on Friday in Boston and will start LHP Tarik Skubal (2-1, 3.67) in the first game. The Red Sox have not announced a starter.
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