Detroit Tigers vs Minnesota Twins Prediction – 4/11/2025

Detroit Tigers vs Minnesota Twins Betting Preview

The Minnesota Twins will host the Detroit Tigers on April 11, 2025, in a pivotal matchup as both teams look to improve their fortunes this season. The Twins, who currently sit at 4-9, are struggling and rank 29th in MLB's offensive standings, representing one of the worst starts in baseball. In contrast, the Tigers come into this game riding a wave of confidence, with a 7-5 record that highlights their strong offensive capabilities—their lineup ranks 4th in the league.

In their most recent outing, the Tigers lost to the New York Yankees, but they won that series against New York in impressive fashion nonetheless. For this contest, Minnesota is expected to start right-handed pitcher David Festa, ranked 99th among MLB starters. Known to struggle, Festa projects to average just 4.7 innings today with a concerning walk rate of 1.7. On the other hand, the Tigers will counter with Reese Olson, who has been effective despite a less-than-ideal ERA of 5.06. Olson's underlying metrics indicate he has had some bad luck, meaning positive regression could be on the horizon as he aims to improve on his 1-1 record.

Both pitchers face offenses that reflect their current situations. While Festa will need to navigate through a potent Tigers lineup, Olson has an opportunity to exploit the Twins' low-walk approach against his high-walk tendencies. With both teams having adjusted win probabilities due to their early-season performances, the projections hint at a close matchup, adding intrigue to an already complicated series opener. Expect a low-scoring affair, with a Game Total set at 7.5 runs, reflecting both teams' challenges and the heightened stakes as they vie for momentum.

Quick Takes Detroit Tigers:

The leading projection system (THE BAT X) projects that Reese Olson will surrender an average of 1.9 singles in this game.

• THE BAT X is a highly sophisticated projection system that accounts for a multitude of factors like ballpark, weather, umpire, and more.

Zach McKinstry is likely to have an advantage against every reliever throughout the game, since the bullpen of the Minnesota Twins has just 1 same-handed RP.

• Hitters perform worse against pitchers of the same handedness (i.e. righty-vs-righty), and being able to avoid those matchups against the bullpen boosts performance and creates hidden edge.

According to the leading projection system (THE BAT), the Detroit Tigers' bullpen grades out as the 5th-best out of all teams in the majors.

• Most bettors only consider the starting pitcher, but a strong bullpen sneakily creates a tougher matchup for the opposing offense and suppresses a game's runs.

Quick Takes Minnesota Twins:

Despite conventional wisdom, fastballs are typically a pitcher's least effective pitch. David Festa must realize this, because he has gone to his off-speed and breaking pitches a lot since the start of last season: 60.1% of the time, grading out in the 80th percentile.

• A pitcher who limits has fastball usage will instead heavily use change-ups, curveballs, sliders, etc. These are far more effective pitches at preventing runs and generating strikeouts.

Extreme groundball batters like Matt Wallner are generally more successful against extreme flyball pitchers like Reese Olson.

• This mostly has to do with the way the hitter's swing plane interacts with the pitch trajectory, and it can create boosted performance across all categories and hidden value few are considering.

Harrison Bader hits many of his flyballs to center field (39.2% — 91st percentile) and has the misfortune of hitting them in the direction of baseball's 10th-deepest CF fences today.

• This player's skill set does not match up particularly well with the park he's in today, which may lead to worse-than-usual performance.

Game Trends

• The Minnesota Twins have hit the Team Total Over in 5 of their last 9 games (+0.30 Units / 3% ROI)
• Zach McKinstry has hit the Singles Over in 7 of his last 8 games (+6.70 Units / 83% ROI)

• Date: April 11, 2025
• Venue: Target Field
• Starting Pitchers:
  • Reese Olson - Tigers
  • David Festa - Twins

Be sure to check out all our free MLB picks here.