Kremer, Twins' lights-out bullpen shut down Tigers in win

DETROIT – When the Twins added three pitchers at the Trade Deadline, they had nights almost exactly like this in mind.

Dean Kremer pitched five strong innings, while A.J. Minter and Jeff Hoffman turned in key performances over the course of four scoreless innings from the Twins’ bullpen as Minnesota boosted its faltering playoff hopes with a 3-2 win against the Tigers at Comerica Park on Tuesday.

Kremer, Minter and Hoffman all joined the team in the final days leading up to the Deadline, with the hope that they’d deliver key performances in big games as the Twins chased a postseason spot. A team slide in August put some damper on the big games part, as Minnesota is clinging to life in the AL Wild Card race, but on Tuesday, all three hurlers did their part.

And in fact, the whole night went exactly according to plan for the pitching staff. Minter and Hoffman joined the two relievers who had already begun to stabilize the ‘pen before the Deadline, Andrew Morris and Yoendrys Gómez, to finish off the win. Gomez picked up his 22nd save.

Minter got four outs in relief of Kremer, Morris got two, and Hoffman pitched a perfect eighth before Gómez finished it off.

Morris in particular got some huge outs. After Ben Malgeri walked to lead off the seventh, then stole second and took third base on an error, Morris fanned Hao-Yu Lee and got Zach McKinstry to fly out to escape the jam.

It was all needed because it was a relatively quiet night for the Twins’ offense. Josh Bell’s sacrifice fly and Kody Clemens’ 25th homer of the year were all the scoring Minnesota could muster against Drew Anderson and the Tigers’ bullpen.