Minnesota Twins waste David Festa’s strong start, fall to Detroit Tigers for 10th loss in 14 games

David Festa joined the Twins on Friday, and though he allowed only one unearned run in nearly five innings of work, he’s probably headed back to St. Paul this weekend.

But no, not because the Twins are afraid he’ll become infected by whatever ails this tortured team.

Once Festa was removed, reliever Jorge Alcalá allowed four runs without recording an out, and the Twins lost for the fifth time in six games, 7-6 to the Tigers. That two-run margin, in case you were wondering, matches the number of unearned runs the Twins allowed on unforced errors.

Festa’s success became just the latest performance to be wasted, a list that on this night also included the Twins’ biggest inning (three runs) and scoring total (six runs) since Sunday.

It all added up to the Twins’ 10th loss in the season’s first 14 games; only once, with a 3-11 start to the 1981 season, have the Twins won less often this early.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the Twins are violating some fundamental tenets about baseball.

“We can’t walk guys and think they’re not going to score some runs. And we’ve got to play crisper in the field,” Baldelli said. “We’ve got to play better fundamental baseball, and it can’t come and go. It’s not one culprit — we have to do better as a group.”

Amid the gloom, not to mention all the empty seats around the gathering of 12,900 at Target Field, it might be easy to overlook Festa’s debut, a nice addition to his often-impressive rookie season.

Festa retired the first six hitters he faced, then escaped a bases-loaded third inning that was largely his fault thanks to a walk and hit batter by getting Riley Greene on a ground ball to first.

“I thought I made a couple big pitches when I needed to, specifically that third inning. Felt really good,” Festa said. “Riley Greene’s a great hitter, big spot, and I’m just happy I was able to get out of that jam.”

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He allowed a pair of singles in the fifth inning, and it cost him when Matt Wallner fielded Gleyber Torres’ two-out hit and threw the ball toward third base. It was off line and deflected off third-base coach Joey Cora’s foot, foiling Festa’s attempt to corral the throw. It bounced into the Tigers’ dugout, a rare error by Wallner that allowed Dillon Dingler to score.

That was all for Festa, who could receive another start — but who more likely figures to return to Class AAA this weekend in order to allow Zebby Matthews to fill in for injured Pablo López next week.

Baldelli declined to say what the team’s plan for Festa is — and made it clear that Festa hadn’t been told, either.

“We don’t want to bog any of our pitchers down with unnecessary information,” the manager said. “When he gets here, I shake his hand and tell him, ‘Go get settled in and go pitch.’ You don’t need to add conversations that they don’t need.”

What Festa needed was a little more run support, but that’s a common problem for the Twins’ staff these days. The Twins scored only once while Festa was in the game, after Byron Buxton walked and stole second base, then hustled home on France’s single to center field.

BOXSCORE: Tiger 7, Twins 6

MLB standings

Once Festa was pulled, however, the Twins surged into the lead on an RBI single by Carlos Correa, a run-scoring groundout by Buxton and an RBI double into the right-field corner by Julien.

The lead didn’t last. Alcalá walked Riley Greene, threw a wild pitch and walked Spencer Torkelson to open the sixth. Colt Keith’s dribbler up the third-base line loaded the bases, and Zach McKinstry drove home two runs with a single, knocking Alcalá from the game. Dingler greeted Justin Topa with another RBI hit and the go-ahead run scored on Trey Sweeney’s groundout.

The Tigers added another unearned run an inning later, when Kerry Carpenter reached base on a ground ball that bounced off Castro’s glove. Three batters later, Keith looped a single into left to bring Carpenter home.

Buxton countered that run with an upper-deck shot in the bottom of the inning, but a Javier Baez RBI double restored the Tigers’ two-run lead in the eighth. The Twins got one back in the ninth, on hits by Trevor Larnach, Julien and France, but Mickey Gasper grounded out to end the threat.

“We put some runs on the board, which was great. It’s always nice to give ourselves a cushion,” Baldelli said of an offense that put runners on base in eight different innings. “Unfortunately, we can’t get all phases of the game working for us at once right now.”