Detroit Tigers reliever Jason Foley hung a second-pitch slider to Fernando Tatis Jr. with a runner in scoring position and two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning.

That small mistake made a difference.

The Tigers lost, 6-5, to the San Diego Padres on Wednesday on a walk-off single from Tatis, who recently returned from the injured list, in the second of three games in the series at Petco Park.

The game ended when Tatis, a right-handed hitter, smacked the right-handed Foley’s middle-middle slider on the ground and through the left side of the infield, enough to score the free runner in extra innings from second base.

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“We had our chances,” manager A.J. Hinch told reporters in San Diego. “We were chipping away, which got us the lead, and then they showed their quick-strike offense and shut-down bullpen. Tough game and a tough loss, especially getting into extra innings. We didn’t do anything with our extra runner. They were able to push theirs across.”

The Tigers (70-70) — following back-to-back losses — dropped to 5½ games back for the third and final spot in the American League wild-card race. Three AL teams are at 70-70: the Tigers, the Boston Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners, with the Tampa Bay Rays at 69-70.

Right-hander starter Keider Montero, who has a 5.47 ERA through 14 games in his rookie campaign, squandered a five-run lead by allowing the Padres to score five runs across the fourth and fifth innings.

Battle of bullpens

The Padres missed opportunities with the bases loaded in the sixth and seventh innings, stranding all three runners against right-handed reliever Beau Brieske in the sixth and right-handed reliever Shelby Miller in the seventh.

Meanwhile, right-handed reliever Will Vest made his job look easy against the Padres’ three best hitters — Tatis (swinging strikeout), Jurickson Profar (swinging strikeout) and Manny Machado (groundout) — in the eighth. Vest then returned for the ninth and retired three batters in a row to send the game to extra innings.

In the top of the 10th, the Tigers had runners on the corners with two outs against right-handed reliever Jeremiah Estrada, but right-handed Justyn-Henry Malloy, pinch-hitting for lefty Andy Ibáñez, flew out to center to end the inning.

The Padres walked-off the Tigers in the 10th. Before Tatis’ walk-off single, the Tigers intentionally walked contact-first left-handed hitter Luis Arraez, who wasn’t a favorable matchup because Foley historically struggles against lefties.

Also, Foley doesn’t miss bats.

“We’ll take our shot with a righty,” Hinch said. “I thought the ball could get on the ground, which it did, but you’re not in a good spot either way. We thought the better shot at getting the ball on the ground at somebody was going to be with the righty.”

Tatis, whose walk-off single ended the game, returned from the injured list before Monday’s series opener against the Tigers. He hadn’t played since June 21 because of a right femoral stress reaction.

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Keider Montero’s start

Montero fell apart in the fourth inning.

Walking Xander Bogaerts put two runners on with one out for rookie Jackson Merrill, who collected his 22nd home run in his 136th game. He hit Montero’s middle-middle fastball for a three-run home run to left-center, cutting the Tigers’ lead to 5-3.

In the fifth inning, the Padres jumped Montero with back-to-back hits from Arraez (single) and Tatis (double) to put runners on the corners. Both hits occurred on pitches that Montero left over the middle of the strike zone.

With one out, Machado — the final batter of Montero’s start, regardless of the outcome — got just enough of a down-and-away changeup in a two-strike count, producing a ground-ball single to tie the game at 5-5.

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Montero, 24, allowed five runs on seven hits with two walks and two strikeouts across 4⅓ innings, throwing 71 pitches. He has surrendered at least four runs in eight of his 14 games since making his MLB debut in late May.

Yu Darvish’s start

Right-hander Yu Darvish, a five-time All-Star, was placed on the restricted list in early July while tending to a personal matter. The 38-year-old made his long-awaited return Thursday against the Tigers, but he wasn’t sharp.

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The Tigers worked Darvish for numerous deep counts, forcing his exit after 63 pitches in the third inning. He allowed three runs on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts across 2⅔ innings.

Matt Vierling put the Tigers ahead, 1-0, when he turned on an up-and-in 95 mph fastball with two strikes and two outs in the first inning. It was his 16th homer of the season.

The Tigers extended their lead to 2-0 in the second inning, thanks to a leadoff walk from Spencer Torkelson. He came around to score on a single from Jace Jung, a wild pitch by Darvish and an RBI groundout from Dillon Dingler.

A leadoff walk from Riley Greene created another scoring opportunity in the third inning, which the Tigers took advantage of with Colt Keith’s two-out RBI single for a 3-0 lead. The single from Keith, who had been slumping for the past week, chased Darvish.

Facing left-handed reliever Yuki Matsui, rookie shortstop Trey Sweeney put the Tigers ahead, 5-0, in the fourth inning with a two-run home run on an up-and-in fastball with two strikes. Jung, a fellow left-handed hitter, kickstarted the run-scoring inning by working a leadoff walk, just like Torkelson in the second and Greene in the third.

It was Sweeney’s first home run against a left-handed pitcher in the 2024 season, following 15 homers in 107 games in Triple-A and two homers in 15 games in MLB.

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

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MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin Department of Transportation added a new step to stop people from living at local park-and-ride lots.

The DOT added concrete barriers at the Holt Avenue lot along I-94.

“I mean first of all you don’t want to be out here. Now you’re feeling like you’re being closed in,” Tracy Bennett said.

Bennett lived in her car at the park-and-ride. She and her husband had nowhere to turn after being evicted in May, but stumbled upon the parking lot in July.

“This isn’t a joyride. This isn’t something we expected, we planned on. It’s not life. It’s not,” Bennett explained.

For months, TMJ4’s Megan Lee has covered the encampments. However, these concrete barriers are new.

People living in the parking lot said the barriers went up a few weeks ago.

When Lee asked the DOT about the barriers, she got this response:

Bennett is worried she will have nowhere to go. She said, “ya know next week they’ll come and push them a little bit farther, come and push them a little bit farther until there’s no place to go.”

Lee asked Bennett if there was a lack of affordable housing in Milwaukee.

“I do. Perfect example. Perfect example right here,” she said.

Bennett is working to get assistance to move into a more stable living situation.

“You can only ask some people so many times for money, for help, for food. You can only ask so many times,” she said.

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MINNEAPOLIS — It’s recognizable not just in Minneapolis, but across the country, and for good reason.

It’s the center piece of the Walker Art Center’s sculpture garden. And in many ways, it’s become a state symbol. Roughly 600,000 people a year visit the Spoon and Cherry.

“It’s bigger than the sculpture garden. It’s bigger than the Walker. It’s something that has become emblematic of the state of Minnesota in general,” said Siri Engberg, Senior Curator and Director of Visual Arts for Walker Art Center. 

Last year the Spoonbridge and Cherry, as its technically called, celebrated 35 years on site. In the late 80’s artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen were tasked with creating something special for the sculpture garden.

“Claus Oldenberg is known for whimsical pop art, infused works that are very much everyday objects and changing them in surprising ways,” said Engberg.

In Chicago, Oldenberg had an idea to use a spoon as a bridge into Lake Michigan. It didn’t work out. But he found a place for the utensil in Minneapolis. His thought was the bowl of the spoon could be associated with the prow of a Viking ship, over the water.

“I think the cherry with the color, the red, that’s what pops it out,” said Vicki Friedman who is visiting with her husband Gary from St. Louis, Missouri.

Van Bruggen thought so too. She’s the one who convinced Oldenburg that the fruit would be “the cherry on top” for his masterpiece.

The cherry weighs about 1,200 pounds. And the spoon portion of the sculpture is nearly 3 tons. It’s made out of stainless steel and aluminum and it took two years to build on the east coast. Then it was shipped by flatbed trailer to Minneapolis. In May of 1988, two cranes finally put the spoon and cherry in its place.

“It’s pretty cool. It shoots water out of the stem,” said Ximena Fernandez, who was visiting the sculpture garden.

The sculpture is a giant fountain surrounded by a wet meadow. Oldenburg designed it that way as a shout-out to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. When the wind changes direction, you feel the mist coming from the stem.

The sculpture needs to be cleaned after a long winter and repainted every so often. But maintaining that shine is what’s helped it become the picture capitol of Minneapolis. People get creative with their photos and some will go to great heights to get a closer look. 

“I love it. It’s so unique. I don’t think there’s anything like it in the world,” said the Friedmans.

“It’s neat. You can’t see this kind of merging between art and nature anywhere else,” said Engberg. “The scale of this piece is monumental. Against the Minneapolis skyline it’s kind of an incredible object.”

Again, the Spoonbridge and Cherry is surrounded by a wet meadow with native plants. It’s all designed to help recycle rainwater through the fountain.