Player of the gameFramber ValdezDET5.0ip 5h 1er 5k
Kerry Carpenter couldn’t have picked a better week to be back from the injured list if he’d tried. Carpenter loves hitting at Tropicana Field, where he contributed a home run and three RBIs during the Tigers’ three-game series sweep of the Rays to begin the week. And he loves hitting Mariners pitching, which he did again on Friday night. The Bryan Woo slider that Carpenter hit wasn’t terrible, right at the bottom of the strike zone. Nor was it really crushed, a Statcast-projected 347-foot drive that would’ve been out in just over half of MLB parks. But the way Carpenter has hit the M’s for his career, it seemed destined to clear the fence. Carpenter got the Mariners again. And with a go-ahead two-run homer in the third inning, the Tigers seemed set to continue their winning ways, adding on for a 7-3 win at Comerica Park. The Tigers, who hadn’t won consecutive games in a month until this week, have won four in a row, their longest winning streak since mid-April. And they’ve done it against two of the American League’s division leaders. Their turnaround coincides with the return to health for Carpenter, who sprained his left shoulder crashing into the right-field sidewall in Kansas City in May, and Gleyber Torres, whose left oblique strain cost him about four weeks. “Our guys have been grinding quite a bit,” Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said before the game. “I don’t know how to accurately describe that energy, but there’s a ton of energy when you get Gleyber back and Carp back.” “It kind of just feels good to put last month behind us even more,” Carpenter said. “I think we’re just showing that this is the team that we can be when we’re playing at our best. And we’re just going to keep riding it.” Friday marked the first meeting between the Tigers and M’s since their incredible 15-inning battle in Game 5 of the AL Division Series, in which Carpenter not only accounted for both Detroit runs on a homer, but four of its eight hits.
