Tigers snap four-game skid with 5-3 win over Royals in opener

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Aug 29, 2025

Published in Baseball

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Just when you thought this trip couldn’t get worse for the Tigers.

They, literally, couldn’t get out of Sacramento quick enough.

But after losing three miserable games to the Athletics in their temporary Triple-A home field, they got stuck at the airport trying to leave.

They were scheduled to fly out of Sacramento Thursday morning but, because of mechanical issues, ended up sitting in the plane on the tarmac for six hours. They didn’t arrive in Kansas City until 10 p.m.

Some off day.

“It wasn’t a great travel day,” manager AJ Hinch said. “But it’s OK. It’s part of the things behind the scenes that unless somebody told you, nobody would’ve mention it. We got to the next city and we’re ready to play.

“We had a lot of bonding time.”

Then they fell behind the Royals 3-0 Friday night with starter Chris Paddack giving up a first-pitch homer to Mike Yastrzemski and a two-shot to Maikel Garcia in the first inning.

Things did get better.

The Tigers pulled themselves out of that early hole and ended the night with a 5-3 win at Kauffman Stadium, extending their Central Division lead over the Royals back to 9.5 games.

Kerry Carpenter came through with a clutch, two-out, two-strike, two-run single in the second inning to cut the deficit to one. Then Riley Greene lined a two-run double into the left-field corner in the fourth, ending the night for Royals right-hander Seth Lugo.

The two RBIs pushed Greene over 100 for the season, making him the first Tiger to reach that plateau since Nick Castellanos did it in 2017.

And with 31 homers and 101 RBIs, Greene joins Hank Greenberg, Rudy York and Jason Thompson as the only Tigers to produce at least 30 homers and 100 runs batting before the age of 25.

The Tigers worked four walks off Lugo and pushed his pitch count to 85 pitches in less than four innings.

Paddack got eight consecutive outs after the messy first but he was giving up a lot of hard contact (95.6 mph exit velocity) and the Royals had a pocket of left-handed hitters coming up.

Hinch went into mix-and-match mode.

First he called on lefty Tyler Holton to finish the fourth. Holton also got the first two outs in the fifth before walking Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino.

Rookie Troy Melton was summoned and he got Garcia to line out to left to end the inning. Greene got a perfect read and quick jump on the ball to avert any trouble.

It was one of three sparkling catches by the Tigers outfielders. Center fielder Wenceel Perez tracked a 413-foot blast from Salvador Perez to the wall, timed his leap and snared the ball before crashing into the padding.

With two on and two out in the sixth, right fielder Carpenter got back to the fence, leaped and took an extra base hit away from Kyle Isbel.

The Royals were not awed by Melton. After he escaped the sixth, Yastrzemski started the seventh with a double and went to third out a fly to right by Witt.

Hinch went to Kyle Finnegan with dangerous lefty Pasquantino coming up. Finnegan threw him four straight splitters, striking him out the last one.

Garcia walked and advanced to second on a wild pitch. That brought Perez to the plate with the tying run at third and the go-ahead run at second.

No worries. Finnegan got Perez to ground to third.

Finnegan, who pitched a clean eighth inning, as well, has now racked up 13 1/3 scoreless innings in a Tigers' uniform.

And at that point, the Royals were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position.

The much-needed cushion run came in the top of the eighth. Dillon Dingler led off with a 399-foot moonshot to left off reliever Taylor Clarke. It was his 12th homer this season.

Will Vest, coming off an ugly three-walk loss in Sacramento, got a double-play grounder from Yastrzemski on a 3-0 pitch and set down Witt to earn his 20th save.