The Detroit Tigers defeated the Minnesota Twins 1-0 on Tuesday at Publix Field in Joker Marchant Stadium.
The Tigers are 11-7-1 in the Grapefruit League.
Kerry Carpenter’s 106.9 mph triple off right-hander Joe Ryan gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead in the second inning,
followed by Javier Báez’s sacrifice fly.Carpenter’s three-bagger was his second and first extra-base hit of the spring
training season, spanning five games..
Right-hander Kenta Maeda, who pitched for the Twins from 2020 to 2023, faced his former team for the first time
after signing a two-year, $24 million deal with the Tigers in free agency this winter.
His fastball averaged 89.2 mph in his third spring training start, a decrease from 89.3 mph in his first and 89.5 mph
in his second. Last season, he had an average fastball velocity of 91 mph.
“Velocity-wise, I’m pretty satisfied with where I am,” Maeda remarked in Japanese via interpreter Dai Sekizaki.
“Ideally, if I could pick it up a little more, that would be better, but then again, there was a little fatigue left in me, but as we go further into the spring and open the season, the velocity should go up.”
“Velocity really doesn’t matter with him ever,” Hinch went on to say. “He’ll be slightly higher during the season than
he is now. It’s the art of pitching if his secondary stuff is finished and there is late darting motion, or if he can toss
both sliders. We knew going in that the velo wouldn’t be a large part of it, so it doesn’t bother me at all.
The 35-year-old pitched four scoreless innings, striking out seven and walking two. He recorded 13 swings and
misses, including three sliders, one fastball, eight splitters, and one curveball. The Twins struck out eight times in 12 swings against Maeda’s splitter.
