DETROIT — They sold out Comerica Park for Lou-lapalooza Saturday night.
An announced crowd of 40,101 came to celebrate Sweet Lou Whitaker — his No. 1 now retired and on the bricks alongside Alan Trammell’s No. 3 for all eternity. And they stayed to enjoy a gritty, if not rare, Tigers’ victory.
Spearheaded by the Castro boys — Harold and Willi — the Tigers steamrolled the Tampa Bay Rays, 9-1, much to the delight of what was the largest non-opening-day crowd in exactly six years (since Aug. 6, 2016, a game against the Mets).
In the fourth inning, the Castros teamed up to record a rare 3-9 putout. Jose Siri hit a foul pop up near the short wall down the right-field line. Harold Castro chased it and got his glove on. Willi Castro, hustling from his right-field spot, was there to clean up the rebound after the ball popped out of Harold’s glove.
They teamed up again in the Tigers’ two-run fifth against Rays’ ace lefty Shane McClanahan. With one out, Willi Castro doubled. It was just the second hit and first extra-base hit allowed by McClanahan.
Harold Castro followed with a single to left to tie the score 1-1. Then he hustled around to score on a double into the left-field corner by Victor Reyes. Third-base coach Ramon Santiago, gauging the arm of left fielder David Peralta and knowing the Rays would have to make two throws to the plate, aggressively waved Harold Castro home.
The throw from shortstop Taylor Walls short-hopped catcher Christian Bethancourt and he couldn’t apply the tag.
Willi Castro doubled off McClanahan again in the seventh, sending Jeimer Candelario to third. Jonathan Schoop cashed that in with a sacrifice fly, ending McClanahan’s night.
And the Tigers just kept on hitting. Harold Castro, who finished with three hits, greeted reliever Jimmy Yacabonis with a double. After Riley Greene was hit in the foot, Javier Báez lined a two-run double into the left field corner. Miguel Cabrera brought Báez home with a single.
When the dust cleared, the Tigers had sent nine batters to the plate and scored five runs on five hits in the seventh inning.
Before that uprising, though, this one was a nailbiting pitcher’s duel between McClanahan, a Cy Young candidate, and rookie Garrett Hill, making his sixth big league start.
The jury is still way out on Hill. There are times he’s able to command his pitches on the edges of the strike zone, that his stuff looks legit — the low-90s four-seamer, the 80-mph change-up and slider that move in opposite directions and the loopy knuckle-curve.
There are other times when the command gets spotty and he has to make predictable pitches in hitters’ counts and his stuff looks more pedestrian.
What seems clear at this point, though, is that his compete level is elite.
Hill worked out of self-created jams in the first, fourth and fifth innings and left the game with a runner on and two outs in the sixth with a 2-1 lead.
He worked out of a bases-loaded, one out jam in the first, getting Siri to fly out and striking out Luke Raley.
After yielding a home run to light-hitting third baseman Yu Chang in the second, he got Chang to fly out with two runners on to end the fourth.
He got himself in trouble in the fifth by walking Brandon Lowe and then falling behind former Tiger Isaac Paredes 3-0. Paredes was the fourth hitter out of five that Hill fell into a 3-0 hole against.
Paredes doubled, sending Lowe to third with one out. Manager AJ Hinch pulled the infield in and Hill got Peralta to hit a hard grounder right at shortstop Báez. Báez threw home and catcher Eric Haase tagged Lowe out.
Hill struck out Siri to end the inning.
Reliever Alex Lange got Hill out of the sixth by striking out Chang, freezing him with a biting curveball.
Hill threw 93 pitches, gave up six hits and walked three, but the Chang homer was the only blemish on his ledger in 5 2/3 innings.
To the point about his stuff playing at this level — he got 15 misses on 39 swings with 15 called strikes. He got six whiffs on 16 swings with his four-seamer.
Things got a little out of hand in the eighth. The bullpen-weary Rays brought third baseman Chang in to pitch, throwing 40-mph sliders and 35-mph curves. Schoop hit one of the curveballs into the seats in left, his eighth of the season.
Right-hander Luis Castillo, just called up by the Tigers after 11 seasons in the minors, made his big league debut pitching a scoreless ninth.
