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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Kenny Rogers has done his share for Detroit. On Friday night, his teammates helped him out.

Rogers allowed five runs and eight hits in five innings, the shortest of his seven starts this year, in a 9-6 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

"I was lucky, without a doubt," said Rogers (5-2), who allowed just eight hits combined in his previous three starts.

Magglio Ordonez, Craig Monroe and Brandon Inge homered for the Tigers, who have won seven of their last eight. Detroit has beaten Minnesota four times in eight days, outscoring the Twins 42-7.

"These are games that sometimes you don't win because of the starting pitcher," said Rogers, 8-3 in 14 starts against the Twins since 1998. "Today the offense picked me up and gave me a win that maybe on a different day I don't get."

Kyle Lohse (1-3) allowed seven runs and nine hits in four-plus innings, his ERA rising to 9.71. Lohse, who has given up 22 earned runs in his last 19 innings.

"Everything is normal, it's just that every mistake is getting crushed," he said. "Every good pitch they were either taking or fouling it off."

Ordonez had an RBI double in the first, and Torii Hunter hit a run-scoring double in the bottom half. Monroe, who entered with a .370 career average against the Twins, hit a two-run homer in the second. Shannon Stewart had an RBI single in the bottom half, but Ordonez homered for a 5-2 lead in the third.

"We're not going to get quality starts day in and day out," Detroit's Curtis Granderson said. "At the same time we gotta know that this is a team made of 25 guys that are going to be there to pick up guys."

Minnesota closed to 5-4 in the bottom half when Rondell White had an RBI single and scored on Michael Cuddyer's double. Inge's homer, and Craig Shelton's sacrifice fly off Matt Guerrier made it 7-4 in the fifth.

Hunter homered in the fifth, and Juan Castro had an RBI grounder against Jason Grilli in the in the sixth. Carlos Guillen hit into a run-scoring fielder's choice in the ninth against Joe Nathan and scored on a single by Dmitri Young, who was activated from the disabled list before the game.

Minnesota, which entered with an AL-worst 6.49 starting ERA, had gotten strong performances from Johan Santana, Brad Radke and Carlos Silva in its previous three games.

"We got three good starts this week and we'll evaluate as we go," said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, whose team fell to 0-10 against AL rivals Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit. "We'll go day-by-day. Tonight just didn't work out."

Detroit's Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney combined to strike out five of six batters they faced. Todd Jones pitched the ninth for his sixth save in six chances.

"We got great arms in this bullpen," said Zumaya, who had at least two pitches reach triple digits on the radar gun. "I don't know how to say this, but if we're taking the lead, I don't think no one's going to get us after the seventh, eighth or ninth."

Detroit relievers have a 2.42 ERA in the teams past 21 games.

"They've been wanting some work and they got it today," Rogers said. "It was nice to see but I sure wish I could have pitched a little bit better and make it easier on them."
The Tigers bullpen is going to be similar to what the Angels bring to the table. The bullpen shut down the Twins offense by a tune of four innings pitched, one hit and one run.