DETROIT -- At some point when Johan Santana wasn't mowing down hitters Wednesday night, Tigers manager Jim Leyland turned to third-base coach Gene Lamont.

"I told Gene Lamont late in the game, 'I don't know if we're going to score,'" Leyland said. "It was funny, because he said, 'Well, maybe we'll get a hit, and somebody will hit a double.' I said, 'I think it's going to have to be somebody running into one and hitting it out of the ballpark. That's the only chance we've got.'"

Thank Vance Wilson for that.

"That's my first game-winning homer since probably Little League," Wilson said of his eighth-inning home run, comprising the only scoring in Wednesday's 2-0 Tigers victory over the Twins.

That makes it almost as rare as Justin Verlander winning a game without a strikeout.

The matchup between one of baseball's best starters of the present and one of the game's potentially great starters of the future was a contrast in styles. While Santana -- who took a no-hitter into the seventh inning the last time he faced the Tigers on May 7 -- added to his strikeout total all evening, racking up at least one in each of his eight innings on his way to a season-high 12, Verlander moved along more like a contact pitcher rather than someone blessed with a 100 mph fastball.

Verlander fired away as usual, hitting triple digits at least once and 99 mph several times on the stadium radar gun, and the Twins kept swinging. However, he allowed just five balls in the air out of the infield over eight scoreless innings, and he didn't walk anyone. With relatively solid defense behind him, and a couple spectacular plays to escape some jams, Verlander kept the Tigers in the game.

"He was tremendous," Leyland said. "He was going up against one of the best -- if not the best -- pitcher in the American League. If you don't pitch well against him, you've got no chance. Obviously Verlander did that. He was fantastic."

Before the game, Leyland said there were two ways a manager could go in filling out his lineup card against a dominant starter like Santana. He could go for offense, thinking how tough it will be to score. Or he could go for defense, thinking it doesn't matter who's trying to hit against a pitcher like Santana. Leyland went with defense and won.

Starting when Curtis Granderson ran down Joe Mauer's drive to the warning track in right-center field for the second out of the game, Verlander retired 10 of 11 batters -- capped by a leaping grab from Chris Shelton to rob Torii Hunter -- until Verlander's 0-1 pitch hit Michael Cuddyer with two outs in the fourth. It extended the inning for Morneau, who hit a line drive off the right-field fence.

Right fielder Magglio Ordonez fielded the ball quickly and fired home, expecting Cuddyer to try to score. Shelton cut off the ball and caught Morneau between first and second base. As Shelton and Ramon Santiago ran down Morneau, Cuddyer started straying towards home. Santiago fired to Brandon Inge, who blocked third base as Cuddyer slid in and applied the tag for the third out.

"If they scratch a run out right there, it's a little deflating, knowing how nasty [Santana] is if they get a couple runs," Wilson said. "You try to do anything to scratch out a run, because you know whoever scores first is probably going to win."

That was Leyland's thinking when his team squandered a potential run an inning earlier. A leadoff double from Ordonez, the only Tiger who hits Santana consistently, and Carlos Guillen's bloop single put runners at the corners with no outs. After Santana struck out Shelton, Leyland tried to put on a squeeze play. Inge swung and missed at a 1-0 pitch as Ordonez broke for home and was eventually run down for the second out. Guillen advanced to third, but Santana struck out Inge to end the threat.

"I take total responsibility for that," Leyland said. "I knew tonight going in that runs were going to be stingy. I wanted to get one on the board early. It was a great opportunity. I had Gene go around and tell a couple guys to be sure to look for the squeeze, and I didn't have him tell Brandon. Had I told [Lamont] to tell Brandon, then Brandon would've been aware of it, and it wouldn't have caught him by surprise. That's a total mess-up on my part."

With that, Santana was back on a roll, retiring 17 of 18 batters. The only runner he allowed in that stretch, Guillen, was caught stealing after his single leading off the fifth.

Shelton broke up the string by drawing a one-out walk in the eighth. Inge worked Santana to a full count before Santana fanned him on a slider for his 12th strikeout of the night. Seemingly back in control, Santana fired a first-pitch fastball to Wilson.

Wilson guessed right. It was his first home run since Sept. 7, 2005.

"He starts you off and pounds that fastball in and gets you swinging at that, then he throws that changeup, so he keeps you in between speeds," Wilson said. "I went up there and thought, 'You know what? I can't hit that changeup anyway. It's such a nasty pitch, I'm just going to turn and burn. Hopefully, I'll get a fastball I can keep fair.'"

Verlander, who had thrown his last pitch of the night, jumped up and down in the dugout. Asked who was more excited over the homer, he said, "It might've been me."

Verlander (5-2) never made the big strikeout, but he never made the mistake pitch when the Twins were guessing right. He had been battling his control over his previous two starts, and had to go to a makeshift curveball last time out.

"That's usually not my style of pitching," he said, "but they were aggressive on the fastball. They were putting them in play, just not very solid most of the night. It worked well for me. I'll take no strikeouts, no walks, no runs anytime."