DETROIT — Caleb Thielbar decided to switch up his routine to start incorporating more running into it after not doing much over the past three years.

Why?

“To prevent lower body injuries,” Thielbar said.

The irony is that Thielbar ended up suffering the type of lower-body injury that he was hoping to prevent, straining his left hamstring while running during spring training.

He didn’t pitch in a spring game and missed the first couple of weeks of the Twins’ season. But on Sunday, he was finally activated from the injured list after a pair of rehab outings in St. Paul.

“It was frustrating. More just frustrating how it happened, me being an idiot,” Thielbar said before Sunday’s game. “I learned my lesson, so thankfully I only missed 10 or 12 games, whatever it ended up bein. So plenty of time to end up having a good, productive season and help these guys out.”

Thielbar has been one of the Twins’ most productive relievers over the past four seasons, though his return Sunday did not go quite to plan.

He allowed a home run, a hit that likely should have been ruled an error, and another single before departing Sunday. Three earned runs were charged to him, and he recorded just one out in the Twins’ 4-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers.

“He’s a good pitcher, so yeah, it’s not what you expect,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But he’s not going to make any excuses. It’s his first outing back in the big leagues. Been out a while, and sometimes it takes time to be sharp.”

The 37-year-old lefty is now one of three southpaws in the Twins’ bullpen, more than they usually carry. To make room for him on the roster, the Twins optioned Jorge Alcala, rather than rookie lefty Kody Funderburk. Steven Okert, the other lefty in the bullpen, has been seeing some high-leverage opportunities that likely would have been Thielbar’s in his absence.

Thielbar provided a fresh arm for a bullpen that was heavily taxed during Saturday’s doubleheader. Alcala pitched two innings, picking up the win in the first game. He had yet to allow an earned run in 8 1/3 innings at the time he was optioned back to Triple-A.

“I talked to Jorge about a couple of things specifically — working ahead of hitters, coming in with his best stuff — but he did a good job for us,” Baldelli said. “We just know over the course of the season, the bullpen guys will take the brunt of some of this at times when we do need to activate someone or bring a new arm up.”

Wallner off to tough start

Matt Wallner sat most of Sunday — he pinch hit and walked in the ninth inning —  amid a slump that has seen him strike out in 16 of his 32 plate appearances this season.

The Twins’ left  fielder has collected just two hits in 24 at-bats. One, a home run, came on Saturday against Zach McKinstry, a Detroit infielder. But Baldelli has often praised Wallner for his ability to make adjustments. And though he has had a difficult start to the season, he pledged his faith in the outfielder.

“He’s had a tough go of it. I don’t think there’s any way around the fact that he’s either not seeing it well or the swing doesn’t feel right to him,” Baldelli said. “He’s a player that we believe in, though. … This happens to everyone at one point or another in their career and in their path. It’s not an easy thing to go through, but he can handle it. He’ll be OK.”

Briefly

The Twins will send Louie Varland to the mound Monday in Baltimore, where they will see Major League Baseball’s top prospect, Jackson Holliday, who was recently called up by the Orioles. Chris Paddack and Pablo López are also lined up to face Baltimore.

A shot at the No. 1 seed was still in play in the regular season finale Sunday.

But any path to that required a victory Sunday against Phoenix.

And, uh, that didn’t come to fruition.

Phoenix blitzed Minnesota 125-106 at Target Center, knocking the Timberwolves down to the No. 3 seed and moving Phoenix up to No. 6.

So the Wolves, who were non-competitive in all three games against Phoenix this season, will square off with perhaps with the team they match up worst against in Round 1.

Game 1 will be next weekend at Target Center.

Minnesota better search for some answers between now and then. Because the Wolves never were within single digits in the second half of any game against Phoenix all season.

In the first matchup of the season, the Wolves were on the second half of a back to back. So that loss was chalked up to that. In the second loss, the Wolves essentially said they just weren’t themselves and didn’t knock down shots. Plus, those games were in Phoenix, so Sunday was a good test to see how the Wolves would fare at Target Center.

Answer: Not well.

There was no ready-made excuse for Sunday’s debacle. Minnesota had loads of incentive to win. But it again sputtered out of the gates, committing an insulting 19 first-half turnovers, which tied an NBA record.

And Phoenix continued to get seemingly whatever it wanted offensively. Prized offseason acquisition Brad Beal went 6 for 6 from deep en route to 36 points. Grayson Allen was 8 for 11 from the field. Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, frankly, didn’t have incredible days. And it didn’t matter.

Because Minnesota’s size can’t seem to lineup man to man against Phoenix’s plethora of scorers. The Wolves’ path to victory in the first-round series will be to out-size Phoenix. They did to some extent Sunday. Jusuf Nurkic was in foul trouble for much of the night. Rudy Gobert drew one foul after another. The center helped Minnesota make mini runs in the second half. But every Wolves’ burst was greeted by another Phoenix made shot to stem the tide.

If nothing major changes in the playoffs, the Wolves may be making another early-round exit.

The Lynx stacked their roster in free agency, signing the likes of Courtney Williams and Alanna Smith, while trading for Natisha Hiedeman.

So the needs to add to the roster via Monday’s WNBA Draft isn’t entirely pressing for Minnesota.

“Obviously, we were really aggressive in free agency. We landed well with some players that gave us depth and balance. So we feel good that we have a long list of draft prospects here that are quality players and can help us, no matter what,” Lynx general manager Clare Duwelius said. “And I think their role, given that we’ve added some talent across the board on our roster, they’ll be in a really unique situation where they can just come in, do what they do, do what they’ve done to get themselves in this position. We’re happy with the work that we did in the offseason.”

Whoever that player is will be added at No. 8 on Monday, as things currently stand. Because Minnesota swapped the No. 7 pick with Chicago for the No. 8 pick.

Minnesota also added a second-round pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft and forward Sika Koné from the Sky, while Chicago also received the rights to forward Nikolina Milić. The Lynx also will get the option to swap first-round picks with Chicago in 2026 should they choose to do so.

Those are the types of moves — adding potentially valuable future resources to slide down a spot today — that you can make when you’re comfortable with where your current roster stands.

“We added a lot of good pieces that are going to be really great for Phee, K-Mac, Dorkha, Diamond and obviously they’re working really hard right now,” Duwelis said. “We feel really good about that progress, but there’s always more than can be done.”

And, even at No. 8, there are pieces Minnesota can nab. LSU forward Angel Reese could be available there, as could Australian guard Isobel Borlase, Utah wing Alissa Pili or Syracuse guard Dyaisha Fair.

Frankly, Minnesota was likely outside the range of selecting a surefire star at No. 7. There’s probably not a Napheesa Collier to be found in the middle of this year’s first round. But that doesn’t mean the Lynx can’t still get a quality player at No. 8.

“The strengths of the draft class — it is a strong one. I think  — is a lot of solid, quality post” players, Duwelis said. “We talk about the floor and the ceiling of players a lot. You know what these players,top prospects, especially where we’re drafting … you know exactly what they’re going to give you every night.

“I think that’s fun in trying to figure out exactly what you want to plug into your roster. I think there’s a lot of quality posts and then, yeah, just trying to see those things that translate to the W, exactly.”

The Lynx also hold the No. 31 pick in the draft.

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DETROIT — Almost every reliever in the Twins’ bullpen played a pivotal role on Saturday in the team capturing a pair of wins. On Sunday, that group got some reinforcements when its top left-hander, Caleb Thielbar, returned from the injured list.

But Thielbar’s return didn’t go quite to plan and the Twins bullpen, which had allowed just nine runs this season heading into Sunday, gave up four in the eighth inning, leading to a 4-3 loss in the series finale at Comerica Park.

Thielbar, brought in to protect a three-run lead, first allowed a solo home run to Javier Báez. Carson Kelly followed with a one-hopper to short that Willi Castro couldn’t corral. A Riley Greene single ended Thielbar’s season debut.

Enter Griffin Jax, the team’s most reliable arm out of the pen.

Jax got Mark Canha to ground to third, but the ball ate up Kyle Farmer, who tried to backhand it, and went into left field, scoring a pair of runners and tying the score. Spencer Torkelson followed with an RBI single, and all of a sudden, the three-run lead that the Twins had been protecting most of the day had gone up in flames.

That sent the Twins to a loss on a day when starting pitcher Bailey Ober did all he could in the six-plus innings he pitched. Ober was ahead in the count much of the day and economical with his pitches. He retired 14 straight batters at one point before a Torkelson double in the seventh inning ended his day.

The Twins led since the second inning when designated hitter Ryan Jeffers knocked in a pair of runs with a bases-loaded single. Catcher Christian Vázquez provided the Twins’ other run of the day, hitting his first home run of the season a couple of innings later.

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