'We can't keep winning like that': Tigers score five late runs to beat Royals
Chris McCosky
Detroit — They will frustrate you, even infuriate you at times. But, you have to know by now that they aren’t going to stop fighting.
The Tigers kicked the ball around for the first six innings, repeatedly failed to get a hit with runners in scoring position and looked to be in bad shape down 3-1 entering the bottom of the seventh.
Then lightning struck in the form of a five-run inning capped by a laser three-run homer to left by Matt Vierling, sending the Tigers to a 6-5 win over the Kansas City Royals on Saturday at Comerica Park.
Of their 15 wins, nine have been the come-from-behind variety.
"We can't keep winning like that," Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. "We're going to need to pick things up and be better. But we are going to take the win. The fight in this team is really good and that's what I love about this team. It's just unsustainable to make mistakes and expect to put up a five-spot against a bullpen.
"There was good and bad. We'll take the good. We're never going to turn away from a win. But obviously, this was not our best."
The damage in the seventh was done against right-handed reliever Chris Stratton and it started with a walk to Jake Rogers. Riley Greene and Mark Canha singled, producing one run. Kerry Carpenter singled in another run. Then with two outs, Vierling dropped the bat head on a 1-2 sinker down and in and scorched it.
The ball left his bat with an exit velocity of 111 mph and with a 14-degree launch angle, never got more than 36 feet in the air. It was a missile.
"It felt great," Vierling said. "It felt even better that we were able to come back and win. I thought maybe some kind of wind might have helped it. I thought it was too low to get out."
As hard as that ball was hit, wind couldn't have been much of a factor. Left fielder Dairon Blanco gave up on it almost immediately.
"At point of contact, all I cared about was it getting over Blanco's head," Hinch said. "He gave up on it because it was over his head in a hurry and the bonus was it going over the fence. That's a rocket. And it turned out to be huge.
"If that ball hits the fence, maybe all three runs don't score."
And, after the Royals chipped away and scored twice against Jason Foley in the ninth, Vierling's run was the difference.
"In the seventh we got the momentum going and all of (the errors and misplays) were in the past," Vierling said. "We just started rolling, exactly what we needed. That other stuff happens, but to still be able to win that game is huge for us."
After being shut out by the Royals Friday, the Tigers mustered only four hits through six innings and were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. They were beating balls into the ground all night — 10 ground ball outs to that point.
Starter Brady Singer, who came in with a 54% ground ball rate, walked three of the first six batters he faced but the Tigers turned that into one just run.
That came on a triple by Zach McKinstry, who brought Colt Keith around from first with nobody out in the second inning. But McKinstry never moved off third base. Singer got Javier Báez and Rogers to ground out into the drawn-in infield and Greene struck out.
Báez and Rogers singled with two outs in the fourth, but Singer got Greene to ground out.
It was more grating on the defensive side of the ball. Four errors were made, two by Báez.
"Some of those plays were kind of in-between," Hinch said. "It was a combo of a couple of things. McKinstry's error was a nasty hop that almost hit him in the face. That was an unlucky error and we had some careless ones. But they all count."
Were it not for some gritty work by starter Casey Mize, the game would have been well out of hand before the seventh.
He came out attacking with high-velocity four-seam fastballs right out of the gate and the free-swinging Royals hit them back harder. Maikel Garcia singled on Mize’s first pitch (104 mph off his bat). Bobby Witt, Jr., followed, hitting a 97-mph heater with an exit velo of 101 mph.
The Royals ended up scoring twice in the first — ground out RBI by Vinnie Pasquantino and an RBI single by Salvador Perez — but those were the only earned runs on Mize’s ledger.
"I kind of got jumped right from the first pitch," Mize said. "It was a grind from my end. I made a lot of mistakes and was lucky to get through five innings."
The first two Royals reached in the second inning on errors — by shortstop Báez and third baseman McKinstry. But Mize got Kyle Isbel to hit one right back to him and he turned it into a fast 1-6-3 double-play. Garcia rescued the inning, though, ripping a two-strike single to right.
Mize worked around an error by first baseman Spencer Torkelson and a misplay by second baseman Keith. With a runner on first and one out, Blanco hit a ground ball up the middle. Keith cut in front of Báez and took the ground ball two steps in front of the bag. He ended up with no play at second and his throw to first was late.
But Mize was undaunted. He got Isbel and Garcia to ground out, stranding both runners.
"It's not hard," Mize said when asked about the difficulty of pitching around the errors. "You just reset and get back in the strike zone. I made more mistakes than our defense did tonight. You just get right back in it and compete again."
The domino effect of giving the Royals all those extra outs was felt in the ninth inning when the top of their order rolled around for a fifth time and Foley had to go through Witt and Pasquantino to secure the win.
"What it does to your pitching staff, it makes them have to get more and more outs," Hinch said. "And then here comes Witt, Jr., and Pasquantino. You can't survive giving the middle of their order five at-bats. It's a bad combo."
Right-hander Alex Faedo got six straight outs and Andrew Chafin put up a zero in the eighth to keep the deficit at two heading into the bottom of the seventh. Foley got Pasquantino to fly out with Witt on first to end the game and earn his eighth save.
"Our guys keep fighting, so I'm very positive about winning," Hinch said. "We have a chance to win the series. But these are plays we can make and we will make. We will keep working at it. We can't get comfortable coming from behind the way we have and expect it to happen again and again and again."
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky