Kansas City, Mo. – Just when you thought this trip couldn’t get worse for the Tigers.
They, literally, couldn’t get out of Sacramento quick enough. After losing three miserable games to the Athletics in their temporary Triple-A home field, they got stuck at the airport trying to leave.
They were scheduled to fly out of Sacramento Thursday morning but, because of mechanical issues, ended up sitting in the plane on the tarmac for six hours. They didn’t arrive in Kansas City until 10 p.m.
Some off day.
“It wasn’t a great travel day,” manager AJ Hinch said. “But it’s OK. It’s part of the things behind the scenes that unless somebody told you, nobody would’ve mention it. We got to the next city and we’re ready to play.
“We had a lot of bonding time.”
Then they fell behind the Royals 3-0 Friday night with starter Chris Paddack giving up a first-pitch homer to Mike Yastrzemski and a two-shot to Maikel Garcia in the first inning.
Things did get better.
The Tigers pulled themselves out of that early hole and ended the night with a 5-3 win at Kauffman Stadium, snapping the four-game losing streak and extending their Central Division lead over the Royals back to 9.5 games.
“Huge,” said Kerry Carpenter, who cut the deficit to a run with a clutch, two-out, two-strike, two-run single in the second inning. “This was a big game, Friday night against a division opponent that’s chasing us down. It was a good win tonight and everybody contributed.”
Riley Greene’s two-run double into the left-field corner in the fourth flipped the score and ended the night for Royals right-hander Seth Lugo.
“They took an early lead but we never feel like we’re out of it,” Carpenter said. “It was huge to chip away and then end up taking the lead on Riley’s double. We were confident the whole time. We were just putting good at-bat together.”
The two RBI pushed Greene over 100 for the season, making him the first Tiger to reach that plateau since Nick Castellanos did it in 2017.
“And he can do better,” Hinch said. “Which is an incredible thing to say on someone who has carried us for so many games. But to put up those scoreboard numbers, you’ve got to post and you’ve got to in there against every (pitcher) and he’s done that.”
With 32 homers and 101 RBI, Greene joins Hank Greenberg, Rudy York and Jason Thompson as the only Tigers to produce at least 30 homers and 100 runs batting before the age of 25.
“I know we’re going to expect more out of him in the next month,” Hinch said. “But these are big numbers he’s putting up and doing it as people are starting to expect it. I applaud him for his consistency and for posting every day helping us win.”
The Tigers, who chased Lugo in the fifth inning at Comerica Park a week ago, worked four walks off him and pushed his pitch count to 85 pitches in less than four innings.
“We saw him five days ago and we had a similar approach where we were going to make him come in the zone,” Hinch said. “He got a couple of borderline pitches early but we didn’t back down. We didn’t get into swing mode. When you swing too much against Lugo, you’ve got to cover a lot of different pitches.
“You have to bring him inside the zone.”
Paddack got eight straight outs after the messy first but he was giving up a lot of hard contact (95.6 mph exit velocity) and Hinch went into mix-and-match mode with two outs in the fourth.
“As we’re approaching September, it’s not about individual stats anymore,” Paddack said. “It’s about the team. That’s just the reality of the game. We should be talking about the bullpen. They covered a lot of zeroes and kept us in the ballgame.”
With a pocket of left-handed hitters coming up, Hinch called on lefty Tyler Holton to finish the fourth. Holton also got the first two outs in the fifth before walking Bobby Witt, Jr., and Vinnie Pasquantino.
Rookie Troy Melton was summoned and he got Garcia to line out to left to end the inning. Greene got a perfect read and quick jump on the ball to avert any trouble.
It was one of three sparkling catches by the Tigers outfielders. Center fielder Wenceel Perez tracked a 413-foot blast from Salvador Perez to the wall, timed his leap and snared the ball before crashing into the padding.
With two on and two out in the sixth, right fielder Carpenter got back to the fence, leaped and took an extra base hit away from Kyle Isbel.
“We played a much cleaner game, obviously, in all facets,” Hinch said. “This was a great environment and that’s a good team over there. You have to make some plays in these close games against winning teams.”
The Royals were not awed by Melton. After he escaped the sixth, Yastrzemski started the seventh with a double and went to third out a fly to right by Witt.
Hinch went to Kyle Finnegan with dangerous lefty Pasquantino coming up. Finnegan threw him four straight splitters, striking him out the last one.
Garcia walked and advanced to second on a wild pitch. That brought Perez to the plate with the tying run at third and the go-ahead run at second.
No worries. Finnegan got Perez to ground to third.
Finnegan, who pitched a clean eighth inning, as well, has now racked up 13.1 scoreless innings in a Tigers’ uniform.
“He’s got a great demeanor for it,” said Hinch of Finnegan’s ability to cover more than one high leverage inning at a time. “He’s got the stuff for it. He’s got endurance. His last pitches were some of his best pitches, and that tells me he can handle it.
“This dude has been incredible at attacking the game at the biggest moments and coming up with huge performances.”
The much-needed cushion run came in the top of the eighth. Dillon Dingler led off with a 399-foot moonshot to left off reliever Taylor Clarke. It was his 12th homer this season.
Will Vest, coming off an ugly three-walk loss in Sacramento, got a double-play grounder from Yastrzemski on a 3-0 pitch — deftly turned by Gleyber Torres and Zach McKinstry, who had just moved over to shortstop from third base — and then set down Witt to earn his 20th save.
A big win on its own merits, bigger given the circumstances of the four previous days leading up to it.
“It’s a great character win,” Hinch said. “It was a complete game and complete win for this team. I am really proud of our fight.”
@cmccosky
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.detroitnews.com ’
