Kansas City, Mo. — The losing streak is now five games. The road record is now an MLB-worst 6-16.
The Kansas City Royals prolonged the Tigers’ misery Saturday night with a relatively breezy 5-1 victory at Kauffman Stadium.
“We have to find a way to weather the storm,” Tigers center fielder Matt Vierling said. “We have to find a way to get a couple of wins. I know it’s a tough stretch right now, one of the tougher ones. But we have to find a way. It’s all part of a long baseball season. We just have to find a way to weather this whole thing and get some wins and get some momentum.”
Oh, and the Tigers might’ve lost another player to injury.
Right fielder Kerry Carpenter left the game in the third inning. He banged his left shoulder running into the side wall chasing Bobby Witt Jr.’s first-inning, two-run, inside-the-park home run.
Witt, a right-handed hitter, sliced a drive inside the bag at first. Carpenter chased it toward the side wall, but the ball caromed past him. Witt never stopped running.
Carpenter stayed in the game and even rolled an infield single in the second inning. But he was replaced by Wenceel Perez when the Royals came to bat in the third inning. Carpenter’s left shoulder was being evaluated during the game.
“It’s got to be next man up,” Vierling said. “Obviously, you feel for the guys who are going down, but we know we’re going to get them back.”
BOX SCORE: Royals 5, Tigers 1
The Tigers came into the game with 15 players on the injured list.
“It seems like there’s a new one every day,” catcher Jake Rogers said. “Obviously, that hurts. I hate to see Kerry go out of the game like that. Hopefully it’s alright. I think we are all playing to the best of our ability and trying to put our heads down and keep playing. It’s no secret we’re a little down and I think we need come around and get a spark.”
Royals’ right-hander Michael Wacha made sure no sparks flickered Saturday night. He allowed two hits in seven innings. The Tigers put 18 balls in play against him with a soft average exit velocity of 84.4 mph.
“Wacha is really good,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “He’s been in the league for a long time. A lot of respect to him. But we had a really hard time putting at-bats together and getting the ball to the outfield. We didn’t really pressure Wacha except for the one inning we had the bases loaded. It was a tough night for us.”
The Tigers put runners at the corners with one out in the fifth, but Wacha got Rogers to pop to shallow right field. Then after he hit Kevin McGonigle with two outs to load the bases, Wacha got Vierling to ground out.
“He had his stuff,” Vierling said. “His stuff was moving everywhere. He was getting his sinker in on righties and his slider was good. He had good command of his change-up, too.”
The two-run homer by Witt would have sufficed. But, for good measure, Michael Massey added a three-run home run off Ty Madden in the fourth inning.
“Down 2-0, that happens a billion times in baseball,” Hinch said. “That doesn’t end the game. It doesn’t even set too much of a tone. It gave them the lead. We didn’t really pressure them and then they hit the three-run homer — then it felt like the tone was set for a long night.”
Madden ended up being one of the few bright spots in the game for the Tigers. He pitched six innings and allowed just one other hit. He set down the last 11 hitters he faced.
“We needed the innings and we wanted the quality because we wanted to win the game,” Hinch said. “I loved how he came back after the homer. It’s easy to concede there and shy away from contact. He wasn’t commanding the ball perfectly but he was staying competitive and he was ending at-bats in his favor. That’s the grit you need to get through that outing.”
Madden getting through the final six innings put the Tigers in a good position going into a full bullpen game Sunday. Brenan Hanifee will open and the Tigers will have a every reliever available except possibly lefty Tyler Holton, who pitched back-to-back games including 1.2 innings Saturday.
“Obviously, the outcome at the end is not good,” Rogers said. “But Ty did great. He made his pitches when he needed to. The three-run inning was rough, but he attacked the zone and got some swing-and-miss late with his off-speed stuff.”
The Tigers broke through in the eighth against lefty reliever Matt Strahm. And it was left-handed hitters who did the dirty work. Riley Greene, who extended his career-high on-base streak to 20 games, doubled home McGonigle.
“We’re not clicking on all cylinders,” Rogers said. “We pitch well and we don’t hit. Then we score three or four runs and give up six or seven. Baseball is such a tough sport. But once things click and we get some guys back, the spark is going to come back. There’s no excuses. We have to be better and play better than we are right now.”
This season is a long way from over but Tigers, 18-22, are in serious need of a course correction.
“It can happen with a win,” Hinch said. “It can happen as soon as 24 hours from now.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Detroit Tigers’ tailspin continues with fifth straight defeat
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
