DETROIT  — The Twins spent the month of June looking for some stability from their starting rotation after watching a pair of pitchers go down with injuries. It’s nearly the end of the month but finally, for three straight games at least, they seem to have found some.

Joe Ryan went out and dealt six scoreless innings on Wednesday. Simeon Woods Richardson followed with five zeros of his own on Thursday. And on Friday, after the Twins decided to start David Festa rather than use an opener, the lanky righty tossed 5 2/3 shutout innings, lifting the Twins to a 4-1 win over the first-place Detroit Tigers in the series opener at Comerica Park in a game that was delayed for 21 minutes by the threat of rain.

Festa, who gave up eight runs in his last outing and entered the day with a bloated 6.39 earned-run average, allowed just two hits in his outing. The second one was the last pitch he threw in his start, which was one of the longest in his career. Festa struck out six batters in his start and walked none, after walking three in each of his last two starts.

The starter received some run support in the fourth inning when Matt Wallner and Brooks Lee hit back-to-back two-out doubles. That was one of two runs Lee would drive in in a game that was strong for him both offensively and defensively.

The Twins scored their second run of the night in the fifth when Byron Buxton smacked a pitch over the middle of the plate out to left field for his team-leading 18th home run of the season.

Buxton scored the Twins’ fourth run of the day, as well, drawing a walk in the seventh inning and then advancing to second on a stolen base. After Trevor Larnach’s groundball moved him over, Buxton raced home to score when Willi Castro laid down a rare sacrifice bunt.

Detroit scored one run in the loss as reliever Griffin Jax worked his way into and out of trouble in the eighth inning. But were mostly quieted, marking the third straight game that Twins pitchers have given up one or fewer runs.

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Those “Naz Reid” tattoos will be relevant long after the ink has dried.

The multi-faceted big man will stay with Minnesota through at least the 2029 season after agreeing on a new deal with the Timberwolves on Friday.

It’s a five-year, $125 million deal for Reid, with a player option for the fifth season.

Reid had a $15 million player option on his current contract that he declined, as expected, before agreeing to the new contract. The 25 year old was otherwise set to enter free agency next week.

But Minnesota was determined to not allow that for the fan favorite. An undrafted free agent, Reid is the best development story in the franchise’s recent history. An undrafted free agent, Reid has taken strides forward every year, cementing himself as part of the team’s long-term core alongside the likes of Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels.

Reid won the 2023-24 NBA Sixth Man of the Year award and has developed into becoming of the league’s best 3-point shooting big men who continues to grow his offensive skillset. There were times in which the Wolves were short handed this season that Reid was able to flash his ability to have an offense run through him and even create off the dribble.

Where that skillset ultimately leads Reid in terms of on-court trajectory still remains to be seen.

This deal makes it next to impossible that Minnesota will be able to keep both Julius Randle and Nickeil Alexander-Walker while staying under the second apron. But the likely candidate to go this offseason was always Alexander-Walker, who’s an unrestricted free agent with young wing options waiting for their turn behind him.

The chances are, Randle will be on next year’s roster. Which could very well mean Reid is again in a sixth-man role.

That was something Reid noted at season’s end that he’d have to think about. He said he “100%” views himself as a starter in the NBA.

“You grow as a player, you grow as a person, you kind of want to fill in different shoes,” he said. “But if you want to be in a winning position, sometimes you might have to sacrifice. So I definitely view myself as a starter, but things happen, things change. You never know what’s ahead of you until you talk about it and until you go through it.”

At the very least, Reid will now be paid as a starter. The hefty salary shows Minnesota negotiated in good faith in an offseason in which many prospective free agents are expected to get squeezed financially as few NBA teams have legitimate space under the salary cap.

Yet the Wolves seemingly paid Reid his worth, which helped get the deal done ahead of the June 30 start of free agency. That guaranteed a franchise favorite stayed in Minnesota, and paints a clear picture of where the Timberwolves are financially heading into next week’s NBA rat race.

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — Gilbert the golden retriever was home with Democratic leader and Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband when a gunman fatally shot the couple and mortally wounded their beloved dog. And he was with them again Friday when the Hortmans lay in state at the Capitol in St. Paul.

He is all but certainly the first dog to receive the honor, having been put down after being badly injured in the attack. There is no record of any other nonhuman ever lying in state, and Melissa Hortman, a former state House speaker still leading the chamber’s Democrats, is the first woman. The state previously granted the honor to 19 men, including a vice president, a U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senators, governors and a Civil War veteran, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.

Hundreds of people waited outside the Capitol before they were allowed into the rotunda at noon to pay their respects. Two pedestals sat between the Hortmans’ caskets, one for an arrangement of flowers and the other, for the gold-colored urn holding Gilbert’s remains.

In this photo from 2022, provided by Helping Paws of Eden Prairie, Minn., state Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, poses with Gilbert, a golden retriever trained to be a service dog but eventually adopted by the Hortman family, at a training facility in Hopkins, Minnesota. (Helping Paws via AP)

A memorial outside the House chamber for the Hortmans included a box of Milk-Bone dog biscuits with a sticky note saying, “For the best boy, Gilbert.”

“We’ve all had family, pets, and it’s tragic to have the whole family lost in in a moment like that,” said Kacy Deschene, who came to the Capitol from the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin.

Gilbert has received a flood tributes like Hortman and her husband, Mark, ever since news spread online that he had been shot, too, in the attack early on the morning of June 14 by a man posing as a police officer. The accused assassin, Vance Boelter, is also charged with shooting a prominent Democratic state senator and his wife, and authorities say Boelter visited two other Democratic lawmakers’ homes without encountering them.

The dog’s injuries were severe enough that surviving family members had him put to sleep at a veterinary clinic in the Hortmans’ hometown of Brooklyn Park, a Minneapolis suburb. The clinic, Allied Emergency Veterinary Service, called Gilbert “sweet and gentle” and “deeply loved” on a GoFundMe site raising money for the care of local police dogs.

Volunteers from a nonprofit that trains service dogs, Helping Paws Inc., provided a little canine therapy for waiting mourners Friday at the Capitol, working the crowd with cheerful golden retrievers. The Hortmans provided a foster home to dogs as part of the animals’ Helping Paws training, and one of them, Minnie, had graduated on to assisting a veteran.

Helping Paws said in a Facebook post hours after the shootings that Gilbert “career changed.” Gilbert had been deemed ”too friendly” to be a service dog, KARE-TV reported.

Democratic state Rep. Erin Koegel, told The Associated Press after the shootings that the golden retriever had “flunked out of school” and “Melissa wanted him to fail so she could keep him.”

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While “Cabaret” hasn’t changed much since it first startled audiences at its 1966 Broadway premiere, the world around it certainly has.

Set in Berlin at the dawn of the 1930s, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical seemed at its debut a look backward, a racy, raunchy memoir for the stage about a time and place in which sexual activity, identity and orientation became topics for exploration. Seeing as America was going through something of a sexual awakening when it premiered, the parallels were provocative.

But the Guthrie Theater’s powerful and extraordinarily well-executed new production leans into the musical’s darker elements, reminding audiences that “Cabaret” is a cautionary tale. Whereas the rise of Nazism has always been part of the canvas on which this musical is painted, Guthrie Artistic Director Joseph Haj’s interpretation bears an insistent urgency that implores those in attendance to listen for the resonant echoes that bounce back and forth between 1930 Germany and the United States of 2025.

It’s a production that gradually goes from thrilling to chilling, the tone subtly shifting from an air of gritty liberation to one of intimidation and oppression. Throughout, the cast of 17 exudes an unmistakable enthusiasm for the material, the onstage electricity radiating up the alpine slopes of the Guthrie’s expansive Wurtele Thrust. Deeply absorbing throughout its just-short-of-three hours on stage, it’s the most exciting musical staging this company has offered in several years. And, without question, the most important.

“Cabaret” was inspired by the semi-autobiographical stories of Christopher Isherwood, an English expat who fell in love with the wild and free nightlife of circa-’30 Berlin. In this adaptation, Isherwood becomes Cliff Bradshaw, an itinerant American befriended by a smuggler who introduces him to the world of the Kit Kat Klub. The star of its revues is Sally Bowles, whose complicated relationship with Bradshaw blooms alongside that of his landlady and a neighboring shopkeeper.

It’s an unusual musical in that about half its songs are ballads that tell the story, while half are up-tempo Kit Kat Klub production numbers that comment on the action and employ flavors of what German jazz sounded like in the era, more march-like than swinging.

Propelled by an excellent 11-piece onstage band and aswirl with Casey Sams’ high-energy choreography, the action is framed by Jo Lampert’s fascinating portrayal of the club’s emcee, one absent the creepiness or angry edge some have brought to the role. Lampert embraces the character’s life-of-the-party elements, tapping into a vulnerability that proves valuable as the tone turns.

As cabaret star Sally, Mary Kate Moore may not give us a strong sense of why Jason Forbach’s (solidly delivered) Cliff finds her so fascinating, but she has an exceptionally emotive singing voice that sells the showstoppers well.

Meanwhile, I’ve never experienced a “Cabaret” in which the romance between the landlady and shop owner was so affecting, and for that you can thank the brilliantly natural performances of Michelle Barber and Remy Auberjonois. And Sasha Andreev deserves kudos for making the smuggler, Ernst Ludwig, utterly charming before it becomes clear that he’s not.

This feels like a production we’ll look back upon as a landmark for the Guthrie, one that confronts you with meaty questions to contemplate while humming your way out of the theater.

‘Cabaret’

When: Through Aug. 24

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 Second St. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $105-$20, available at 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org

Capsule: Both exciting and important, it’s a masterful production.

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