In the second game of a three-game series against the Red Sox, Boston was able to silence the bats of the Tigers and homer their way to a 4-1 victory. Casey Mize started against Eduardo Rodriguez, and despite Rodriguez’s 5.33 ERA he was able to shut down Detroit over his five innings pitched. Both teams struggled with runners in scoring position — they each failed to score with runners on first and third in the first inning — but ultimately it was Boston’s three home runs to Detroit’s one that was the difference in the game.
It seemed that Mize was not on an inning restriction tonight, but the Red Sox were still able to knock him out before the sixth. Three was his not-so-magic number on the evening as he allowed three walks, struck out three batters, and worst of all gave up three home runs. J.D. Martinez got him for a solo shot to lead off the second to get the scoring started, and then the wheels really came off for Casey in the fifth. With two outs and one strike away from getting out of the inning unscathed, Mize allowed a long two-run home run to Kiké Hernandez to push the score to 3-0. Jarren Duran followed with the second home run of his major league career, a line drive that just cleared the Tigers’ bullpen.
When it started to look like the Tigers were going to get shut out in the seventh inning, Jonathan Schoop said “not so fast!” Schoop hit a monster blast to deep left-center field to get the Tigers on the board. But the Tigers were still trailing 4-1, and after that, well, they just were never able to get the rest of the bats going.
On the plus side, Derek Holland, Buck Farmer, and Joe Jimenez all had scoreless outings, with Jimenez having a perfect inning on two strikeouts. On the negative side — besides the loss, of course — the Tigers struck out 18 times.