The Detroit Tigers opened a four-game road series at the Minnesota Twins on Monday night at Target Field, with Casey Mize on the mound against Joe Ryan and the first pitch set for 7:40 p.m. ET. Detroit carried the game on Detroit SportsNet, MLB.TV and the Tigers Radio Network.
The matchup came one night after the Tigers fell 5-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals and missed a sweep at home, leaving them to reset quickly as the American League Central took shape after nine games. The Cleveland Guardians led the division at 6-4, while the Tigers, Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals were each 4-5 and the Twins were 3-6.
Mize entered at 0-0 with a 1.50 ERA, while Ryan was 0-1 with a 4.82 ERA. That made the pitching pairing one of the cleaner early indicators in a division where every game in April starts to matter fast, especially for Detroit after a mixed opening week that included the opening game of its home schedule on Friday against St. Louis.
The Tigers also had more on deck after Monday. They were scheduled to face Arizona on Tuesday night behind Mize and then again Wednesday afternoon behind Tarik Skubal, before Jack Flaherty was set to start for Detroit on Saturday afternoon. For a club trying to keep pace in the standings, the trip to Minnesota was only the first stop in a week that asked for answers in a hurry.
The tension for Detroit is simple enough: the Tigers can point to the close win-loss cluster in the division, but they have not yet separated themselves from it. Beating Minnesota would help, but it would not erase the missed chance in St. Louis or the fact that the standings were already crowded after just nine games.
