Right-hander Michael Lorenzen, one of the most coveted pitchers leading up to the Aug. 1 trade deadline, fueled the Detroit Tigers past the Kansas City Royals with another stellar pitching performance.
The 31-year-old, who owns MLB’s longest active scoreless innings at 21⅔ innings, fired seven scoreless innings before manager A.J. Hinch ended his afternoon in the dugout.
“Our consecutive streak of pitchers wanting to stay in the game is still alive,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters in Kansas City. “He knew what was coming. He did his part. It’s more of an inside joke for me and him coming off the field.”
The Tigers beat the Royals in Thursday’s series finale, 3-0, to take three of four games at Kauffman Stadium. Two of the three runs were scored when four straight batters reached safely with two outs in the bottom of the second inning.
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As of Thursday evening, the Tigers (44-52) sit 5½ games behind the first-place Minnesota Twins in the American League Central, with the Twins facing the Mariners in Seattle.
An early 2-0 lead allowed Lorenzen to work with run support.
He worked around a one-out single from Edward Olivares and a one-out walk from Nick Pratto in the bottom of the second inning. He turned to his revered changeup as the finishing pitch for back-to-back outs against Michael Massey (force-out) and Drew Waters (flyout), stranding the runners.
“He’ll have a mishap every now and then,” Hinch said, “but he’s done a really good job of getting himself back into pitching after a misfire or after an 0-2 to walk, like he did to Pratto. His mentality has been excellent going on a couple months now.”
The only other trouble occurred in the fourth inning, when MJ Melendez hit a one-out double. Lorenzen stranded the runner, but this time, he used his slider for outs against Olivares (groundout) and Pratto (strikeout).
Lorenzen, who threw 59 of 89 pitches for strikes, allowed just three hits and one walk with three strikeouts. He completed seven innings for the fourth time this season, and he completed seven scoreless innings for the first time.
“He’s able to reset, get back in the strike zone, get back to competitive pitches and mix his pitches well,” Hinch said. “He’s unafraid to use any pitch, which is good, and I love the way he goes about it.”
The Royals had an 87.3 mph average exit velocity on 20 balls in play.
Lorenzen has a 3.49 ERA in 17 starts.
To beat the Royals, Lorenzen utilized 28 four-seam fastballs (31%), 24 sliders (27%), 21 changeups (24%), 10 sweepers (11%) and six sinkers (7%). He registered 12 whiffs with three fastballs, five sliders, three changeups and one sweeper.
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Four to go
With two outs in the second inning, the Tigers strung together four successful plate appearances in a row: Nick Maton (single), Akil Baddoo (walk), Andy Ibáñez (single) and Eric Haase (single).
“He still did more behind the plate,” Hinch said of Haase. “I like the base hit, and obviously, he contributed on both sides. When a guy is struggling, he can contribute in a different way, and then all of a sudden, it opens up offensively for him.”
The bottom of the batting order, the Nos. 6-9 spots, stepped up to help take down veteran right-hander Zack Greinke, a 39-year-old pitching in the 575th game of his 20-year MLB career, and looking for his 225th career victory.
Ibáñez and Haase were responsible for driving in the two runs.
“Catch a winner, get a hit,” Hinch said of Haase. “Those are things we love as catchers.”
Greinke allowed two runs on four hits and two walks with one strikeout, throwing 39 of 62 pitches for strikes. The Tigers scored their third and final run against left-handed reliever Austin Cox in the fifth inning.
McKinstry smoked a two-strike four-seam fastball for a triple to right field and came around to score on Spencer Torkelson’s sacrifice fly, making it 3-0.
Holding on in relief
After Lorenzen, the Tigers turned to left-hander Tyler Holton in the eighth inning and right-hander Jason Foley in the ninth inning. Holton retired all three batters he faced, but Foley couldn’t match his performance.
Maikel Garcia, the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the ninth, worked ahead 3-0 in the count and hit a fifth-pitch sinker for a single into right field. The next batter, Kyle Isbel, flew out to center field for the first out.
Finally, Salvador Perez grounded into a game-ending double play.
It marked Foley’s fourth save of the season.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.