It looked like the Detroit Tigers were going to keep up with the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night inside Comerica Park, with the home team tying things up heading into the seventh inning. It appears the slot machine hit the seven-spot, as the Motor City Kitties coughed up seven runs en route to their seventh straight loss, 11-6.
Michael Lorenzen took the bump to start this one, coughing up a solo shot to Corbin Caroll to open the scoring. The D’backs struck again in the second with a two-out RBI single by Geraldo Perdomo that scored Emmanuel Rivera but ended with a TOOTBLAN at second.
The Tigers responded with a run in the bottom of the second thanks to a Zack Short double that scored Kerry Carpenter with no outs. AJ Hnch’s squad evened things up in the bottom of the sixth on a sac fly by Short that scored Nick Maton. That 2-2 mark was possible thanks largely to Lorenzen settling in through the first six frames.
Then it got ugly.
Christian Walker and Rivera doubled back-to-back, followed by a sac bunt by Josh Rojas to move them up. Jake McCarthy singled both of them in before Perdomo flew out to nearly get Detroit’s starter out of harm’s way. But then Jose Herrera singled him over to third and that marked the end of Lorenzen’s outing. But unfortunately, he left runners on the bases which never bodes well.
Will Vest came in and the the first batter he saw, Pavin Smith, reached on a catcher’s interference by Jake Rogers, which loaded the bases. A walk to Ketel Marte and a grand slam by Caroll later and the Tigers were down 9-2. Vest finally stopped the bleeding with a flyout by Walker as Arizona batted around.
Rogers promptly repented for his mistake, popping a solo home run on the first pitch he saw to make it a 9-3 game. That was the end of Merrill Kelly’s day, who managed to earn the quality start for his effort. His final line: 6 1⁄3 innings, three runs on seven hits (one home run) and two walks while striking out five. His opponent Lorenzen finished with six runs on seven hits (one home run) and one walk while striking out three over 6 2⁄3 innings.
Zack McKinstry and Javier Baez flew out and grounded out to end the seventh, respectively. Garrett Hill was then brought in to mop up things in the eighth and managed to cough up a run after leading things off with a walk followed by another Rogers catcher’s interference call. While one runner was erased on a double play, a challenged play at first base resulted in a single that gave ‘Zona a 10-3 lead.
You gotta give it to these Tigers, they certainly did not quit in this one. Spencer Torkelson got things going in the bottom of the eighth with a ground-rule double and found home plate thanks to a Maton groundball single. But things cooled off quickly as Carpenter and Andy Ibáñez flew out while Short struck out, sending the rest of the kitties down with a whimper. Arizona 10, Tigers 4.
Hill played with fire in the ninth — and got burned — surrendering a leadoff walk followed by a double, which set up the sacrifice fly to push the score to 11-4. However, a strikeout and a groundout ended the top of the final frame.
Jake Rogers was not through, though. After working through five pitches, he cranked the sixth over the wall for his second solo shot of the day, inching Detroit a little closer to the tune of an 11-5 score? Did the Tigers have anything more in store?
Why yes they did, in fact. After Jake Marisnick lined out and McKinstry flied out, Baez took reliever Miguel Castro — who just replaced Drey Jameson — deep for a solo shot of his own. Unfortunately, the excitement ends here with an 11-6 finals score… and that is all she wrote, folks.
While the final score was ugly, it was nice to see this squad continue to push through adversity. Lorenzen was his solid self for the most part except for that foul frame and the bats showed some life. Hopefully, that momentum will carry over on Saturday, with the first pitch scheduled for 1:10 p.m. EDT.