Tuesday’s win was an exciting show of what the Twins’ trio of stars can do when they’re all healthy.

Royce Lewis snapped out of an 0-for-10 skid with a double off Detroit ace Tarik Skubal, bringing home a pair of runs. Byron Buxton doubled and then used his speed to score the go-ahead run. And Carlos Correa added an insurance home run in the Twins’ 5-3 win over the Tigers at Target Field.

But this trio has so rarely been healthy at the same time, and in the midst of all that, the injury bug returned. Again, it was for Lewis, who has been dynamic since his returning to the field in early June after straining his quadriceps in the first game of the season.

Lewis left early with left groin tightness and said he would have more information after the Twins receive magnetic resonance imaging results.

“This is out of my control. I have no idea,” Lewis said when asked if he was optimistic if the injury was minor. “But probably not very optimistic, to be honest with you. I’m praying, but it’s usually always horrible knows. So we’ll see.”

Lewis said he felt the tightness crop up when he was making his way to second base. And though he played two more innings in the field, he exited in the sixth inning.

The lead that Lewis gave them held until the fifth inning, when starter Simeon Woods Richardson gave up a pair of home runs, yielding three runs. Those would be the only three he’d give up in his 5 2/3-inning outing.

“Two pitches happened but that’s baseball,” Woods Richardson said. “ … I’m glad that (manager) Rocco (Baldelli) let me go back out there, showing faith, showing trust, showing belief.”

Just a half inning later, Manuel Margot tied the game with a home run to the bullpen in center field, extending the Twins’ (48-37) home run streak to a club-record 20 straight games.

And in the seventh, Buxton, who earlier in the day flashed the leather by stretching out for a diving catch, showed off some of the rest of his skill set in the seventh, hitting a double, racing to third on a wild pitch and sprinting home and diving in safely headfirst on a ball hit back to Tigers (38-47) second baseman Colt Keith.

A clearly-amped Buxton let out a yell and patted his chest after scoring the run to give the Twins the lead for good.

“He’s feeling good and you can really see it,” Baldelli said. “We’re seeing it right now. He’s very explosive and playing the game the way he knows how to play it.”

The very next inning, Correa provided some comfort for the Twins, sending a shot out to left-center on a first-pitch slider from reliever Beau Brieske.

The win moves the Twins to a season-high 11 games over .500.

“We had good at-bats. We did our best to avoid expanding,” Baldelli said. And it’s good to come back after an off day and keep it going, keep the momentum going in the direction we want.”

Rushing waters from the Blue Earth River have already left a trail of debris and destruction on the edges of a southern Minnesota dam that partially failed last week, but officials acknowledged Tuesday the structure most in danger may be the bridge that looms nearby.

The County Road 9 bridge is at risk of crumbling, and officials said they have little recourse. The threat to the bridge emerged after a bout of heavy rain and flooding pummeled the Upper Midwest for days. The Blue Earth River’s water levels rose dramatically and tested the structural integrity of the aging dam. The dam has held up, but the specter of collapse hasn’t waned.

Now, the roughly 40-year-old bridge locals use to commute across the dam from rural patches of land to nearby towns may topple if the weather doesn’t cooperate.

“Unfortunately, we’re at the mercy of Mother Nature at this point,” said Ryan Thilges, the public works director for Blue Earth County. “We’re very concerned about the potential for partial or full failure of the bridge.”

Thilges stood atop a hillside on the eastern side of the Rapidan Dam near Mankato. He was flanked by Gov. Tim Walz and other officials who went to the dam to get an update on flood conditions and recovery efforts.

Officials are warily watching both the dam and the bridge, noting that the still-surging river has drastically changed the area.

“I think the concern is that is the bridge going to be structurally damaged by this and will it need to be replaced?” Walz said.

The floodwaters forged a new river channel around the west side of the dam, cutting deeply into the steep riverbank, toppling utility poles, wrecking an Xcel Energy substation, swallowing a home and forcing the removal of a beloved store. The conditions have made it too dangerous for officials to get close enough for a thorough inspection of the bridge, but they have already identified troubling signs of damage.

The river is washing away large amounts of sediment, causing instability to the bridge’s supporting piers, built atop sandstone bedrock. Officials have been able to stabilize at least one pier but said they haven’t been able to get to the others.

Complicating matters was “a massive spike of trees that came down the river” the weekend of June 22-23, Thilges said. The dead trees, a product of drought over the last several years, collided with the bridge, and some are hanging on the piers. The county has not been able to find contractors who feel safe enough to clear the debris.

“Nobody was willing to send out their operator and risk their operator’s life to try to push those trees through,” Thilges said.

Flooding has caused millions of dollars in damage to bridges, homes and roads across Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. The dam captured attention after officials initially said on June 24 that it faced an “imminent threat” of collapse.

The Rapidan Dam is more than a century old, finished in 1910. While it was built to generate electricity, it has been damaged by several rounds of flooding in recent decades. An April 2023 assessment conducted by the National Inventory of Dams found Rapidan to be in poor condition, and officials have been studying the possibility of removing it.

A federal disaster declaration has been approved for Blue Earth County, and local officials said the additional resources will be critical for rebuilding efforts.

But working near the washed-out dam could be complicated by the fragile landscape, Thilges said.

“I’ll be perfectly honest, all the solutions we came up with had almost as bad or worse adverse impacts that could affect the dam stability further, or it could result in damage to the bridge or additional erosion,” he said. “We need Mother Nature to give us a break.”

Beyond the cost of recovery post flood, Walz recognized the impact on families and business near the bridge. Replacing the structure would mean a long way around to get to and from homes.

Walz met with members of the Hruska family, who lost a home and the Dam Store they long owned along the river. He remembered biking to the store, known for its homemade pies, back when he lived in Mankato.

He commended the Hruskas for their strength through the difficult situation.

“Their sense of optimism, gratitude and grace they showed in interviews at a time of great turmoil lifted up a lot of people,” he said.

David Hruska, who lived in the lost home with his father, Jim, thanked everyone for the outpouring of support. The family is still worried about the future, he said, but rebuilding somewhere remains the plan.

The county bought the Dam Store last week for $40,700 before demolishing it to keep it from falling into the river and causing damage downstream. The family owns what’s left of their land, at least that which hasn’t fallen into the river already.

This report includes information from the Free Press of Mankato.

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Leading by four with fewer than seven minutes to play Tuesday in New York, the Lynx looked poised to topple the Liberty for a third straight time this season.

And then the Minnesota offense stalled out in a massive fashion in its 76-67 defeat.

Cecilia Zandalasini scored to put the Lynx up 65-61 with eight minutes to play.

That marked the Lynx’s second-to-last score of the contest. Minnesota went the next seven minutes, 30 seconds without a point until Dorka Juhasz scored with 30 seconds to play after both benches had largely cleared.

In between those two buckets, Minnesota missed 10 consecutive shots from the field and two from the free-throw line while committing four turnovers. The Liberty (17-3) went on a 15-0 run to rally and avenge Minnesota’s Commissioners Cup victory that netted the Lynx players $1 million just a week prior.

Tuesday’s duel was a defensive slugfest. Neither team scored more than 22 points in any quarter. The Liberty shot just 37 percent from the field and 22 percent from deep on Tuesday, but Minnesota wasn’t any better. The Lynx shot 39 percent from the field and just 30 percent from 3-point range.

Minnesota held Breanna Stewart to 5-for-20 shooting from the field, though the superstar grabbed 17 rebounds and scored nine points in the decisive quarter. Jonquel Jones finished with 21 points — on 8-for-13 shooting — to go with 12 rebounds.

Napheesa Collier had 15 points — on 7-for-13 shooting — 10 boards and six assists for the Lynx (14-5).

Late-game offense continues to be a bit of an issue for Minnesota, who entered the game with the league’s third-lowest clutch-time offensive rating, scoring just 0.93 points per possession in such situations. The Lynx sported the second-worst offensive rating in the fourth quarters of games (98 points per possession). That’s a significant dip from how well Minnesota scores throughout the remainder of contests.

Thus far this season, Minnesota’s dominant defense has been able to carry the burden when the offense is dipped, but there was no overcoming Tuesday’s offensive struggles.

Even with that, Minnesota’s performance as a whole in Tuesday’s heavyweight bout was further proof that the Lynx firmly belong in the WNBA’s top tier. Minnesota will do battle with another of the WNBA’s elites on Thursday when it plays host to Connecticut.

Briefly

– Kayla McBride was named an all-star Tuesday. It’s her fourth all-star selection. The sharpshooter entered Tuesday’s game averaging 15.8 points per contest on 44-percent shooting from 3-point range.

McBride will play for Team WNBA in the all-star game on July 20, while Napheesa Collier will play for Team USA in a contest that serves as prep for the upcoming Olympics.

– Lynx guard Bridget Carleton was named a member of Team Canada for the upcoming Olympics.

– Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve was named the WNBA’s Coach of the Month for June after guiding Minnesota to a 9-2 record in the month, including the Commissioner’s Cup. This is only the second time Reeve has claimed the honor. The first occasion came when the award was handed out for the very first time by the league in May 2017.