DETROIT — One of the quirks about the return of home crowds has been the return of the wave, with each game at Comerica Park featuring at least one inning during which fans revel in having enough people in the seats to send a wave around the park. That was seemingly the intention of two young fans who exhorted their neighbors to get on their feet as the bottom of the sixth inning began, only to be reminded that Miguel Cabrera was at the plate.
Cabrera had a single, but no home runs in the Tigers’ 4-1 loss to the Red Sox, leaving him at 498 home runs and 2,945 hits heading into Thursday’s series finale. But on a day when his former teammate, J.D. Martinez, homered at Comerica Park for the first time since he was still a Tiger four years ago, Cabrera remained the center of attention on his milestone chase.
Cabrera struck out swinging on a 93 mph fastball from Eduardo Rodriguez to strand runners at the corners in the first inning, one of 10 strikeouts Rodriguez compiled over five scoreless innings and 18 Tigers strikeouts for the night — not counting the aforementioned attempt at the wave. Cabrera’s 2,945th career hit came on a sixth-inning squibber with a 56.9 mph exit velocity off a Hirokazu Sawamura splitter in on his hands.
Jonathan Schoop’s 18th homer of the season put the Tigers on the board in the seventh. A two-out walk to Robbie Grossman brought Cabrera up with a chance to create a one-run game. On came Adam Ottavino, whose slow first-pitch slider sent Cabrera swinging. He got under it, but sent a pop out to center.
Tigers starter Casey Mize shook off Martinez’s second-inning solo homer to stay in a duel with Rodriguez for four innings before back-to-back two-out homers from Kiké Hernández and Jarren Duran built a comfortable lead. Mize suffered his first loss since July 2.