The Detroit Tigers needed to win the series finale. A series loss to the Kansas City Royals, the worst team in the American League Central and the second-worst team in the AL, would have been unacceptable.
To win the series, though, the Tigers needed to take down right-hander Brady Singer at Comerica Park. Although Singer has struggled this season, he entered the finale with a 6-0 record and a 3.05 ERA through 11 starts against the Tigers in his career.
Singer allowed five runs and took his first loss in the 12th matchup, as the Tigers beat the Royals, 9-4, on Wednesday to take two of three games in the series for their fifth victory in the past seven games.
“We faced him a month ago,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “There’s no secret as to how he pitches. It’s a matter of his command. … When he has command, you got to be ready to swing. If he doesn’t have command, you got to be ready to take. We did a good mix of both.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Tigers (32-41) are 3½ games behind the first-place Minnesota Twins in the AL Central. The Tigers and Twins will play three games at Comerica Park over the weekend.
Facing Singer, the Tigers scored three runs in the second inning. With one out, Nick Maton (walk) and Andy Ibáñez (single) reached safely, and with two outs, Eric Haase rocked Singer’s down-and-away slider for a two-run double.
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The double tied the game, 2-2.
“When his sinker is on, it’s a tough pitch to hit,” Haase said of Singer. “If he goes to his slider a little bit earlier, I think we were ready for it. Up and down, it looked like guys were picking it up a little better than usual today.”
The Tigers increased their lead to 3-2 with Short’s ensuing two-strike single to score Haase and never looked back.
“We don’t look at the standings,” Short said. “It’s early, and no matter who we’re playing, we’re trying to put our best swings and best pitches out there every day, and if it happens to be in the division, it means a little bit more.”
Detroit’s pitching staff, headlined by left-hander Matthew Boyd’s six innings, limited the Royals to four runs. Boyd allowed two runs on six hits with zero walks and seven strikeouts in his 14th start of the season.
He threw 57 of 81 pitches for strikes.
“The goal that we all want, you got to win today,” Boyd said. “If you focus on the end, you’re going to lose track of where you are. … Getting to where we want to be is a symptom of doing things the right way today.”
Six more runs
The Tigers added to the margin in the third, fifth and eighth innings.
In the third inning, Javier Báez followed Kerry Carpenter’s double with a single off Singer’s down-and-away slider. The two-strike single to left field extended the Tigers’ lead to 4-2 and marked the 1,000th hit of Báez’s career.
“He’s only 2,100 and what behind Miggy,” Hinch said, joking. “Keep working.”
In the fifth inning, Singer hung a two-strike slider to Short. The ball ended up over the left-field wall for a solo home run — which was Short’s fourth homer of the season — for a 5-2 lead.
The Tigers put 14 of Singer’s sliders in play, averaging a 90.8 mph exit velocity. Singer threw 54 sinkers, 39 sliders, three changeups and one sweeper for 97 pitches total. His sinker was his most effective pitch.
Singer, the No. 18 overall pick in the 2018 draft, allowed five runs on seven hits and one walk with two strikeouts across seven innings.
“Our two-strike hitting, obviously, was excellent today,” Hinch said. “Our two-out hitting was excellent today in a couple of instances. The right amount of adjustment along the way with Singer was good to see.”
A collision in right field, resulting in a fielding error, allowed Spencer Torkelson to reach third base to start the eighth inning. He came around to score on Báez’s one-out single to left field, making it 6-3.
The Tigers tacked on three more runs against righty reliever Jackson Kowar in the eighth inning: Matt Vierling grounded into a force out with the bases loaded; Haase legged out an infield single with runners on the corners; Short hit a single with runners on first and second base.
Matthew Boyd’s six innings
Before the Tigers’ offense battered Singer, the Royals capitalized on a tough play by Ibáñez in left in the second inning when Freddy Fermin hammered Boyd’s hanging slider to left-center field.
The ball bounced off Ibáñez’s glove at the back of the warning track.
“He just had to stay aggressive,” Hinch said of Boyd. “He had a really good changeup and a pretty good slider. When he has that, he can fall in love a little bit with it, which is a fine line. You want him to maintain his fastball command, specifically at the top of the zone. It wavered in the early inning, and then I thought he settled in great.”
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Boyd had given up singles to Maikel Garcia and Samad Taylor, so both runners scored easily on Fermin’s double. Vierling, the center fielder, chased down and picked up the ball, which deflected back toward the middle of the outfield, as Garcia and Taylor approached home plate.
The Royals took a 2-0 lead.
“It’s just attacking with one pitch at a time regardless of what happens,” Boyd said, “and knowing what I do when I’m out there.”
From then on, Boyd handled the Royals without any trouble. He bounced back with two strikeouts in the third, then finished his start when Garcia grounded into an inning-ending double play in the sixth.
Boyd used 28 four-seam fastballs (35%), 24 sliders (30%), 22 changeups (27%), five sinkers (6%) and two curveballs (2%). He generated 14 whiffs with five fastballs, five sliders and four changeups.
“The slider has been coming around more and more,” Boyd said. “As I continue to get more reps and do this (in first full season after arm surgery), little things like this are going to start to happen. It’s exciting to have that.”
The Royals scored their third and fourth runs in the eighth and ninth innings off right-handed relievers Jason Foley and Brendan White, respectively. It was White’s fourth appearance in his MLB career.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.