Tigers swept by Twins; Parker Meadows carted off after collision

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Apr 9, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — The Tigers couldn’t get out of this city fast enough.

Not only were they swept in a four-game series at Target Field for the first time since July 2021, losing the finale Thursday, 3-1, extending their losing streak to five games and their road losing streak to eight, they might have lost the services of center fielder Parker Meadows for a bit.

In the pivotal bottom of the eighth inning, Meadows and left fielder Riley Greene collided on a line drive hit in the left-center gap by Josh Bell. It was head-to-head contact at full speed. Greene caught the ball but Meadows was knocked hard to the ground and didn’t move for several seconds.

Trainers and paramedics were called out and Meadows, who seemed to take the brunt of the contact around his mouth, eventually left the field on a cart. He was woozy but he managed to stand and get on the cart himself.

Meadows will be held overnight for further examination.

The game was tied at that point. But with one out, the Twins loaded the bases against reliever Will Vest with a walk, single and, with two outs, an infield single by Royce Lewis on a ball he topped down the third-base line.

Vest got ahead of pinch-hitter Brooks Lee, but let him back in the count. Lee delivered a two-run single.

The Tigers (4-9) never led once in the series.

But it felt like the dam was going to break. Sooner or later, something or someone was going to crack open the flood gate. The Tigers were facing right-hander Mick Abel, who had been tagged for nine runs in seven innings in his first two starts.

Not only were they facing a scuffling starter, the Twins’ bullpen was severely taxed after covering seven innings in the previous three games.

It felt like a combustible mix, especially as the Tigers kept putting runners on base in the early innings. They had runners at second base and less than two outs in the first four innings, in fact, but went 0 for 10 in the ensuing at-bats.

But the big hit remains maddeningly elusive.

In the first two innings, they had runners on first and second and no outs and the next two hitters struck out. Rally killers.

Spencer Torkelson hit a ball in the first inning with an exit velocity of 103.3 mph and a launch angle of 38 degrees. The ball died at the wall, 375 feet.

Greene hit a one-out double in the third on a ball that left his bat at 105 mph with a 27-degree launch angle. On a normal summer day, that ball is in the upper deck. On 40-degree afternoon Thursday, it banged high off the right-field wall.

Bell found the right combination of exit velocity and launch angle in the fourth. He hit a first-pitch slider from Jack Flaherty, 106 mph, 28-degree launch, and sent it 401 feet off the facing of the second deck in right.

It was a most encouraging outing for Flaherty. Bell’s homer was the only run in his 5 2/3 innings. He was much more aggressive in the strike zone than he had been in his previous two starts and he was executing both his slider and knuckle-curve.

He got four whiffs on seven swings and five called strikes with his knuckle-curve.

He also got some Grade-A defensive support. Shortstop Javier Báez, who produced two hits for the third straight game, saved a run in the first inning, picking a bullet grounder (101 mph exit velocity) by Matt Wallner behind second base and turned it into an inning-ending double-play with a runner at third.

In the fourth with a runner at second, second baseman Zach McKinstry stole an RBI single from Lewis with a backhand play behind the bag.

But the Tigers never did get to Abel. He blanked them for six innings with six strikeouts.

They finally scratched across a run in the top of the seventh against reliever Garret Acton, the one reliever they hadn’t seen in these four games.

Catcher Jake Rogers took one for the team to get it started. He never moved and took a one-out pitch off his elbow guard. He went to third on a single by Keith and scored on a sacrifice fly by Gleyber Torres.

That was, as it turned out, all there was.