Coming off an outing that was unforgettable for all the wrong reasons, suburban Detroit native Matt Shoemaker was looking for a bounceback start in the Twins’ opener at Comerica Park on Friday. The opportunity was within arm’s reach, given the only team that has struggled more this season than the Twins was their opponent that night, the Tigers.

Shoemaker and the Twins took advantage of the circumstances. He survived early traffic on the basepaths and the first of two rain delays to turn in five shutout frames in Minnesota’s 7-3 win over Detroit.

• Box score

“I thought he battled very well,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He was forced to work, too. They laid off a lot of pitches and he continued to make good pitches. It was a nice winning effort by him.”

Shoemaker had two underlying motivations that gave him a little something extra for this outing. First, he was pitching close to home, in front of family and friends, against a team that he grew up rooting for as a kid.

He also knows his track record against them as an adult. And it’s exceptionally good.

In his career against the Tigers, Shoemaker has allowed four earned runs over 50 2/3 innings for a 0.71 ERA.

"I can't pinpoint it, but there's definitely an underlying emotion, or whatever it is,” he said. “Growing up a Tigers fan, living 30 minutes away, family, friends, a lot of people always rooting for me in attendance, that probably all adds together to that package.”

In that context, any start against Detroit would be welcome for the 34-year-old right-hander. But this one was especially timely, given Shoemaker had one of the worst performances of his career six days earlier, when he allowed a career-high nine runs over 3 1/3 innings in a loss to the Royals. 

And that was motivation No. 2. 

“When you have ones like that, and hopefully you never do, you just have to readjust mentally and physically sometimes,” Shoemaker said. “And sometimes get a little mad. That's OK, if you can channel in the right way. 

“I just had a different mentality out there tonight, like listen, I'm going to go out there, execute pitches, not going to let them beat me. If you get beat, so be it. You're going to get beat sometimes. Just refocus and take that approach, and build off this.”

Shoemaker worked in and out of his own trouble and finished blemish-free. He allowed the first two batters to reach in both the second and fourth innings, but stranded a total of five Tiger baserunners. He also weathered a 35-minute rain delay to return for a fifth and final inning, walking one but fanning two to cap an 86-pitch outing.

Brief rain delays can present conundrums for pitchers -- or, more accurately, for the managers who have to decide whether or not the delay was too long to allow the pitcher to return to the mound once the skies clear.

Thirty minutes is a dicey timeframe. For a rain delay, it’s short. For a pitcher sitting around and not pitching for that amount of time, it can make their re-entry into the game uncertain.

Shoemaker said he got on a stationary bike to keep his body loose, and then continued to throw in the cage until the game restarted.

“I didn’t want to sit for 10, 20, 30 minutes and get cold,” he said.

Given how much stress has been put on the bullpen, that extra inning was, as Baldelli put it, “a low-key very big deal for us.”

“It might not seem like it’s big, but it's actually huge for us,” Baldelli said. “Where we're at with our bullpen, this week, with how many guys have thrown a ton of pitches already, that inning was very important.”

Garver exits early
Catcher Mitch Garver left the game in the eighth inning with right shoulder inflammation. He was removed for precautionary reasons and is considered day to day.

Baldelli pointed to the long night, which included two rain delays that totaled one hour and 44 minutes, as a reason to err on the side of caution and remove Garver from the game.

"Guys had to get hot many times over with the delays, and his shoulder got to the point where it was more than just a little sore,” Baldelli said. “We still think that he should be OK. Over the next day or two, we'll treat him, and I think he's going to be fine in a couple of days, and maybe even available [Saturday].”