MINNEAPOLIS – It was 37 degrees at first pitch Monday, April 6, for the game between the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins at Target Field.

The “feels like” temperature?

Only 19 degrees.

“It’s the coldest I’ve ever been in a game,” manager A.J. Hinch said.

MONDAY’S ACTION: Defense doesn’t help Casey Mize in Tigers’ 7-3 loss vs Twins

There was no doubt about that as Hinch, in his 12th season as an MLB manager, walked to the mound wearing a beanie – rather than his usual cap – to remove right-hander Casey Mize with one out in the fifth inning, .

The Tigers lost, 7-3, to the Twins in Monday’s opener of a four-game series.

Nobody made excuses.

“I mean, it’s the same for both teams,” said Hinch, who watched his defense make multiple mistakes. “It wasn’t great, but it is what it is. It’s the game scheduled, and we need to play better in the environment regardless of the weather.”

“I definitely think it’s a challenge, but both teams had to deal with it,” said left fielder Matt Vierling, who dropped a ball in the second inning for a fielding error. “As the game went on, it definitely got a lot colder.”

“It was a factor, for sure,” said Mize, who allowed five runs across 4⅓ innings. “It was a tough night to pitch, which made it hard on me, but I didn’t pitch well. The splitter, I could tell, was going to be tough to command from the get-go, just with it being so cold and dry, which made it pretty tough on me.”

JEFF SEIDEL: Kerry Carpenter heating up among many encouraging signs for Tigers

After Monday’s loss, the Tigers entered Tuesday at 4-6, with losses in six of their past eight games.

Left-hander Tarik Skubal – the reigning two-time American League Cy Young winner – got a chance to stop the slide in Tuesday’s game. To do so, he was going to have to try to overcome a similar challenge in his third start of the 2026 season.

More cold weather.

“I don’t like to think about all that stuff when I have to go perform in it,” said Skubal, who owns a 0.69 ERA across 13 innings in his first two starts. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I feel like. Everyone is playing the same game, so that’s how I treat it.”

From 2023-25, Skubal owns a 2.25 ERA with eight walks and 36 strikeouts across 32 innings in five starts against the Twins.

“You have to go play,” Skubal said. “If you let the environment and the outside factors impact what you’re doing on the field, you’ve already lost. I think that’s going to be more of the mental battle for everyone in here – just play baseball and don’t let the factors dictate how you perform.”

PAIR OF ACES: How Tarik Skubal and Justin Verlander are learning from each other

The Cleveland Guardians, Chicago White Sox and New York Mets moved their Tuesday home games to earlier in the day as temperatures were set to plummet in the afternoon and evening. Back in 2025, the Tigers moved up first pitch for all three games against the New York Yankees at Comerica Park in early April because of “evening wind chills.”

“That’s smart,” Skubal said.

“I would’ve loved it,” Hinch said.

The Twins chose to keep first pitch at 6:40 p.m. local time for both Monday and Tuesday.

There wasn’t any dialogue with the Tigers.

“I’ve told the guys, ‘This is going to be the toughest environment to play in mentally,’” Hinch said, “just because the conditions are going to be the coldest it’s going to be, there’s not going to be a ton of energy in the ballpark when it’s like this, and you got to create your own energy. It’s our reality. There’s no changing it.”

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