Detroit Tigers rookie Wenceel Pérez hits clutch single in 5-4 win over Minnesota Twins

MINNEAPOLIS — Jack Flaherty knew right away.

He looked frustrated when Trevor Larnach put a charge into his middle-down fastball with two strikes and two outs in the first inning, resulting in a two-run home run. After that, Flaherty dominated the Minnesota Twins on Friday in the first of three games at Target Field.

The Detroit Tigers beat the Twins, 5-4, behind a clutch hit from a rookie playing in the seventh game of his MLB career. Wenceel Pérez drove in the game-winning run with a hard-hit single back up the middle off left-handed reliever Caleb Thielbar in the top of the ninth inning.

"I was trying to be patient," Pérez said. "I was trying to get a good pitch to hit, and when he threw me a fastball down the middle, I didn't miss it."

After Pérez's hit, the Tigers (11-9) slammed the door on the Twins with right-handed reliever Jason Foley, recording his sixth save in as many opportunities. He worked around a two-out walk.

Flaherty, a right-hander in search of a bounce-back season, allowed four runs (two earned) on four hits and one walk with 10 strikeouts across six innings, throwing 97 pitches. He retired eight batters in a row, striking out seven of them, between Larnach's homer in the first inning and single in the fourth.

"Every win is important," Flaherty said. "Not every game is going to be clean. We haven't had a lot of clean ones of late, but when you're able to find a way to win those, it feels pretty good."

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It was Flaherty's show until an error in the sixth inning changed the momentum of the game.

Flaherty walked the leadoff man before the next batter hit a fly ball to right-center field. It should've been an easy out. Pérez, a below-average defender in right field, cut in front of center fielder Parker Meadows and tried to catch the ball, but the ball bounced off his glove.

Pérez was charged with a fielding error.

"I overran it a little bit," Pérez said.

The Twins had two runners in scoring position.

Flaherty struck out the next two batters — his ninth and 10th strikeouts — before Byron Buxton hit a two-strike slider for a two-run double to left field to tie the game, 4-4. Left fielder Kerry Carpenter failed to make the catch because he misread the path of the fly ball, which hit the wall, bounced on the warning track and kicked back into the grass.

"It was a tough one," Carpenter said. "The wind was swirling up there, and then I got back to the wall, and then the wind brought it back towards the field, so I overran it a little bit and then jumped and then missed it."

But Pérez got the last laugh in the top of the ninth inning, when he drove a 92.5 mph fastball from Thielbar into center field for a two-out single. Meadows set the stage for Pérez with a two-out single of his own, followed by taking second base on a throwing error on a pickoff attempt.

Meadows scored easily on Pérez's single for eventual game-winning run.

"One of the best things I like about Wenceel is he's in the moment," Hinch said. "He is emotional, meaning he's into it. He made a mistake earlier in the game, didn't carry it with him. He punched a couple times, didn't carry it with him. He just took his swings and gave us the lead."

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Kerry Carpenter

While Flaherty dominated on the mound, the Tigers were led by Carpenter at the plate against Twins right-hander Joe Ryan. He finished 4-for-5 with two RBIs, including three hits off Ryan.

"We probably had the advantage facing him two times in five days," Carpenter said of Ryan, who recently threw six innings of one-run ball with 12 strikeouts against the Tigers at Comerica Park. "We remembered exactly what he was trying to do to us last time, and it's better when you can remember shapes of pitches within the last five days or so. That helped us."

Carpenter jumpstarted the Tigers with a two-out double in the first inning, leading to a 1-0 advantage.

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He scored from second base when Spencer Torkelson hit a long grounder to second baseman Edouard Julien, who fumbled the ball after making a sliding stop. Julien wasn't going to get Torkelson at first base, so he threw home to get Carpenter, but catcher Christian Vázquez failed to get his glove on the ball.

The Tigers added two runs in the third inning on a pair of two-out singles from Pérez and Carpenter. Meadows stole second base to set up Pérez's RBI single; Pérez stole second base to set up Carpenter's RBI single.

It was the first RBI of Pérez's MLB career.

The two steals and two hits put the Tigers ahead, 3-2, in the third. The Tigers increased their lead to 4-2 in the sixth inning when Pérez tripled and Carpenter drove him in with another single.

Jack Flaherty

Flaherty deserved better.

The defense, specifically in the sixth inning, put a damper on his best start of the season. He generated 19 whiffs on 44 swings with four fastballs, six sliders and nine curveballs. His fastball averaged 93.1 mph.

"I know Jack deserved better, but our team is not going to pout," Hinch said. "We're going to play the game. We're going to make some mistakes, and overcoming it by playing well the rest of the game is really key."

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Flaherty struck out five batters in a row after Larnach's home run in the first inning: Buxton (curveball), Carlos Santana (slider), Willi Castro (curveball), Vázquez (curveball) and Kyle Farmer (fastball).

After Julien's ensuing lineout, Flaherty struck out Ryan Jeffers with a slider at the bottom of the strike zone to complete the third inning. He then struck out Alex Kirilloff (slider) and Buxton (fastball) in the fourth inning. He also struck out Kirilloff (curveball) and Larnach (slider) in the messy sixth inning.

Those were all 10 strikeouts.

It was Flaherty's first double-digit strikeout game since May 15, 2023.

"I had a good one going today, and we kept going to it," Flaherty said of his curveball. "Every game is different, especially facing a team two times in a row, back-to-back starts, you got to make some subtle adjustments here and there because the hitters are going to be the same. It just comes down to executing."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers' Wenceel Pérez hits clutch single in 5-4 win over Twins