DETROIT — Losing a home series to the only team beneath you in the Central Division standings seems like a rough way to spend a holiday weekend. But, given how things have gone this season for the Tigers, it was fitting.
The Kansas City Royals rode a pair of second-inning home runs off starter Tarik Skubal to a 7-4 win over the Tigers in the series finale at Comerica Park Sunday.
The Tigers' concern level for Skubal at this point must be high. This was his fifth rocky start in a row, the second straight and third out of his last four that he didn't get through five innings.
After he pitched a clean and encouraging nine-pitch first inning, he looked like a different pitcher in the second. His velocity was down on both his four-seam and two-seam fastballs and he struggled to command it on the inside part of the plate to right-handed hitters.
Edward Olivares led off the second curling a 2-0 slider inside the foul pole in left field, his third homer of the season. Skubal walked left-handed hitting Vinnie Pasquantino and with two outs got ahead of Emmanuel Rivera 1-2 with sliders and a changeup.
He threw a four-seam fastball at 92 mph, 2 mph less than Skubal's average, that Rivera launched into the visitor's bullpen in left-center.
Skubal got through the third and fourth innings unscathed but he was still falling behind hitters. His pitch count climbed over 80 pitches in the fifth. After a single and a walk, he gave up a two-out, RBI double to left-handed hitting Andrew Benintendi which ended his day.
Reliever Wily Peralta walked the first two hitters he faced, the last with the bases loaded, putting another run on Skubal's ledger. Tigers pitchers walked in two runs Sunday.
In his last five starts, all losses, Skubal has been dinged for 23 earned runs and 30 hits in 23 innings. He's walked 14 and stuck out 20 in those starts. In the 11 starts before that, he had 70 strikeouts and 10 walks in 65.2 innings, allowing 17 earned runs.
Stark contrast.
For the first four innings the Tigers' hitters were being bullied by Royals' right-hander Brady Singer. He struck out eight of the first 14 hitters he faced, including five out of six between the third and fourth innings.
But coming out after the long top half of the fifth, Singer lost his edge. After Jeimer Candelario led off with a single, Spencer Torkelson unloaded on a 3-2 sinker and put it into the seats in left. It was his fifth home run of the season and his first since May 18, a span of 129 homer-less plate appearances.
Singer walked Kody Clemens and Harold Castro around a single by Victor Reyes and his day was done. Side-arming right-handed reliever Jose Cuas, who pitched in all three games of this series, was summoned to face Javier Baez with the bases loaded.
Baez hit a sinking liner to right field but Whit Merrifield got a good break on it and made a sliding catch, saving two runs.
Kody Clemens, getting a start at second base, blasted his second home run of the season in the bottom of the seventh. He ambushed a first-pitch fastball (98.7 mph) from reliever Dylan Coleman and ran it over the fence in right field.
Tucker Barnhart followed with a double and scored on a sacrifice fly by Reyes. That made it a 6-4 game.
The Royals tacked on a run in the top of the seventh. Right-hander Jason Foley, with two on and two out, hit Pasquantino to load the bases and then walked Michael A. Taylor to force in the run.
Will Vest, who struck out Rivera with the bases loaded to end the seventh, got himself into a bases-loaded mess in the eighth. After Nicky Lopez led off with a single, Vest fielded a bunt and threw too late to second base. Then he walked Merrifield to fill the bases.
He got out of it in four pitches. Benintendi hit a liner up the middle that Baez snared near the bag at second. Then Bobby Witt, Jr., who was hitless in the series, bounced into a fast 6-4-3 double-play.
It was an ugly outing for Tigers' pitchers. A lot of balls. They walked eight, hit a batter and gave up 11 hits. Five pitchers combined to throw 175 pitches.
