No rain on Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello's parade : Detroit 10, Minnesota 2

In their 10-2 win Tuesday night, the Tigers had some rare sights for the Tigers in Minnesota.They played in the rain.They incurred their first weather delay in Minnesota in at least 30 years.

The last such delay would have come at Metropolitan Stadium in suburban Bloomington, where the Twins most recently played in 1981. From 1982 through 2009, they played under the Metrodome roof.

The Twins moved to Target Field last season, and the Tigers didn't have any weather delays in their nine games there.

In their first game at Target Field in 2011, the Tigers had a 5-0 lead when a rain delay occurred in the bottom of the fourth.

Then, for a bit, hail accompanied the rain. “Golf-ball-sized hail,” manager Jim Leyland said.

(Justin Verlander picked up a few pieces of the hail. It’s what the Toronto hitters must have thought he was throwing last Saturday in the no-hitter.)

The hail lay in the outfield like a few thousand golf balls at a driving range. Somehow, the grounds crew cleared or collected all of it.

When play resumed after 64 minutes, starter Rick Porcello remained on the mound for the Tigers. He had that rare luxury for a Tigers pitcher in recent times in Minnesota -- a big lead.

Porcello went the minimum five innings for the win.

“Porcello actually pitched seven innings,” Leyland said. “He pitched two innings in the (batting) cage (during the delay). We kept him going that way.

“That’s why I got him out after five innings. I wasn’t going to take any chances.”

In the two previous seasons -- that is to say, in Porcello's career -- the Tigers went 4-15 in Minnesota. Of those four wins, three came by two runs or fewer.

They wound up with their largest margin of victory in Minnesota in a dozen years.

Three of the Tigers' hottest hitters gave Porcello that big early lead.

Jhonny Peralta drilled a two-run homer in the second for the Tigers' first hit and runs.

Peralta has three homers and 18 RBIs. “He’s been hitting the ball real hard lately,” Leyland said. “He hit a couple of rockets (Monday) night.”

Peralta’s homer ended the remote chance that Twins starter Francisco Liriano would match Johnny Vander Meer’s 1938 feat of back-to-back no-hitters.

Liriano, who no-hit the White Sox his last time out, wobbled some more in the third. Austin Jackson started the rally with his latest extra-base hit, a one-out double.

Scott Sizemore walked. Magglio Ordoñez hit a smash toward right. First baseman Justin Morneau needed a diving stop to deny him a hit and retire him.

With runners now on second and third with two out, Liriano intentionally walked Miguel Cabrera. And here Victor Martinez did what the Tigers signed him to do. He made a team pay for not pitching to Cabrera.

Martinez worked the count full, then sent a sharp two-run single into center. It was 4-0, and Martinez had his seventh and eighth RBIs since he returned from the disabled list a week ago.

Liriano didn't come out for the fourth; the Twins announced he'd left the game with an illness.

His fellow left-hander Brian Duensing took over. With one out in the fourth, he walked Sizemore with the bases loaded to force in the fifth run. A handful of boos were heard.

The delay came after Porcello allowed a leadoff single to Jason Kubel in the fourth. An hour later, he showed no effect of the delay; he retired the next three hitters.

Martinez made it 6-0 when he doubled in a run in the fifth. The Twins finally responded when rookie Rene Tosoni led off the Twins' fifth with his first career homer. Brad Thomas replaced Porcello to begin the sixth with the Tigers still leading, 6-1.

“I’ve said it all along -- I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but I like our team,” Leyland said. “We’re starting to hit a little bit and starting to get some big hits.”