DETROIT — The sight of Jarrod Dyson dashing home from third with Monday’s go-ahead run on Whit Merrifield’s fifth-inning sacrifice fly was a familiar one. The Royals’ speedster haunted the Tigers for years during his previous stint in Kansas City, and he has enough energy left in his 36-year-old legs to keep it up.
The Royals turned Dyson’s leadoff double into a run with a Nicky Lopez sacrifice bunt and Merrifield’s sac fly, supplementing Carlos Santana’s two-run homer a couple innings earlier. They then thwarted the Tigers’ scoring threats in the seventh and eighth, both times stranding the tying run in scoring position with nobody out.
The 3-2 Detroit defeat completed a four-game series sweep in which the Royals held the Tigers to five runs. In the process, the Royals manufactured the kind of offense Detroit is trying to find in spacious Comerica Park. The Tigers have lost 10 of their last 11 games, scoring 20 runs in that stretch.
Santana’s fifth home run of the season, and his 23rd career homer against the Tigers, came after starter Spencer Turnbull couldn’t coax a strike call from home-plate umpire Tim Welke on a slider that seemed to catch the plate. Instead of an 0-2 count against a familiar nemesis, Turnbull had a 1-1 count. His ensuing slider ended up over the right-field fence, the only ball Santana put in play in three at-bats against Turnbull.
Miguel Cabrera’s RBI single in the bottom of the inning halved Detroit’s deficit, ending a 15-inning scoreless stretch with the Tigers’ first RBI hit other than a home run since Thursday’s series finale against the Pirates. Cabrera went first to third on Jeimer Candelario’s ensuing single but was thrown out trying to score on Willi Castro’s grounder to short, one of several missed chances to add on runs against Royals starter Brad Keller.
Niko Goodrum hit Keller’s first pitch of the fourth inning into the right-field corner for a leadoff triple, then scored when Grayson Greiner blooped the next pitch into center field for a single. But the Tigers went 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position overall, a struggle that became more pronounced once Dyson’s run restored Kansas City’s lead for its bullpen.
Robbie Grossman and Harold Castro drew back-to-back walks to begin the seventh, but Scott Barlow stranded them by striking out the middle of Detroit’s lineup in order, mixing curveballs and sliders to fan Cabrera and Candelario before getting Willi Castro to end the threat.
Rookie sensation Akil Baddoo nearly tied the game off of veteran reliever Greg Holland in the eighth, but his long drive bounced off the top of the left-field fence and back into play as Baddoo sped into third with a leadoff triple. Holland struck out Goodrum, induced a check-swing squibber in front of home plate from pinch-hitter Wilson Ramos, then fanned Victor Reyes to quash the rally.