A trip home helped the Detroit Tigers snap out of a two-game offensive rut.
After scoring one run in the final 18 innings of the road series against the Milwaukee Brewers, the Tigers’ bats had a renewed verve at the plate to take the series opener at home against the Kansas City Royals, 6-1, on Thursday night.
The Tigers (11-8) got to former Tigers pitcher Michael Lorenzen in the third inning, starting with a Kerry Carpenter single and Zach McKinstry walk to put two on base with one out. Designated hitter Spencer Torkelson followed it up by roping a low cutter down the left field line for a two-RBI double.
Riley Greene, who came into the game hitless spanning his last 20 at-bats since April 9, snapped the skid with an RBI single up the middle to give the Tigers a three-run edge early.
“It was a good night for (Riley), it was a good night for our team,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “… Really happy for him to get some results. For him personally and also for our team. We are a different lineup when we are getting contributions throughout.”
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The run support proved to be more than enough for starter Reese Olson, who turned in his first scoreless start of 2025. Olson navigated traffic on the base paths in the first and fourth innings, but escaped both jams to pitch five scoreless innings with five strikeouts.
Carpenter led off the fifth inning with a double to the right field wall, and Greene drove him in with his second RBI single of the day, this time looping a ball over Vinnie Pasquantino’s head at first base. Greene finished 3-for-5 with two RBIs.
“I knew it was going to happen one of these days,” Greene said.” Hoping it was sooner than the (six) games we played on the road but, yeah, it’s the game of baseball — it’s hard.”
Olson finds success with changeup
Hinch said pregame the key for Olson to improve on his first three starts of the season was to have better control of the strike zone.
“When he throws strike one and when he’s using all of his pitches in and around the zone, he gets really tough to hit,” Hinch said pregame.
The control was not there immediately for Olson, starting by giving up a single to Jonathan India on the game’s first pitch and walking Bobby Witt Jr. He induced flyouts from Pasquantino and Salvador Perez before striking out Michael Massey with a changeup below the zone to strand the runners in the first.
The changeup became the key pitch for Olson on Thursday. All five of his strikeouts came when throwing the changeup and getting the Royals hitters to swing right over the pitch. He threw the changeup 31 times out of his 87 pitches, the most of any of his five pitches by 10, and induced eight whiffs on 15 Royals’ swings.
“It’s just nasty,” Hinch said. “Against any hitter, any lineup.”
Olson ran into trouble again in the fourth inning after briefly losing control of the zone. Following a Massey single, Olson walked Maikel Garcia and hit Cavan Biggio with a pitch to load the bases with one out, but struck out Drew Waters and got a Kyle Isbel flyout to end the threat.
“After that first inning, it kind of felt like I could throw (the changeup) every pitch and Ding called it a lot,” Olson said. “He trusted it and I trusted it and it got me out of big spots.”
Olson produced his first scoreless start of the season, going five innings with four hits allowed, two walks and five strikeouts on 87 pitches.
Beau Brieske gave up a run in the eighth after giving up a walk and two singles before Tommy Kahnle escaped the jam by drawing a double play.
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Tagging up an old friend
The Royals started right-handed pitcher Michael Lorenzen, who previously pitched for the Tigers in 2023. Lorenzen earned the only All-Star berth of his career in a strong first half of the season with Detroit, before the Tigers moved him at the trade deadline in exchange for prospect Hao-Yu Lee, who currently plays for Triple-A Toledo.
The Tigers scored all four runs off Lorenzen, who signed a one-year deal with Kansas City in the offseason.
Most of the damage came in the third inning after Carpenter, who went 3-for-4, started the rally with a one-out single. Two batters later, Torkelson drove in two runs with his sixth double of the season, followed by Greene’s first hit since the series finale against the New York Yankees.
Carpenter and Greene combined for the fourth run off Lorenzen in the fifth inning before he was removed from the game after 4⅔ innings. The Tigers added two insurance runs courtesy of McKinstry and Torkelson’s third RBI in the eighth inning.
Jared Ramsey covers sports for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at[email protected]; Follow Jared onX orBluesky.
