Sacramento, Calif. — The Tigers continue to just put their collective heads down and plow ahead as the trade winds continued to howl around pitcher Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize.
Homers by Kevin McGonigle (11), Gleyber Torres (6) and Max Clark, his first in the big leagues, sent the Tigers to an 8-6 win Saturday night, their second straight against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park.
“We’ve done a really good job as a group just locking down with one another and not worrying about what we can’t control,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “This game is challenging enough. We know we have some guys going through it a little bit. They see their names in the rumor mill. There’s a lot of unknown going into Seattle on the off day Monday.”
Less unknowns now. In the seventh inning, news broke that Skubal had been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for right-handed pitcher River Ryan, pitching prospect Brady Smith and outfield prospect Zyhir Hope.
Certainly the news spread to the Tigers’ dugout, but Skubal and Mize had already made the long walk back to the clubhouse earlier in the game.
BOX SCORE: Tigers 8, Athletics 6
With the win, the Tigers move to 5.5 games back in the Central Division and three games back in the wild-card race.
McGonigle and Clark became the first 21-year-old tandem to homer in the same game. McGonigle led off the game with an opposite-field shot into the bleachers in left. Clark’s homer, a two-run shot, came in the fifth and landed on the berm beyond the bullpens in right field.
McGonigle had three hits. Torres, Spencer Torkelson, Clark, Colt Keith and Eduardo Valencia had two. Valencia pinch-hit for Keith in the seventh, so the Tigers got four hits out of the fifth spot in the batting order.
Lefty Framber Valdez, one of the pitchers not going anywhere before Monday (he’s in the first year of a three-year, $115 million deal), soldiered through seven innings, beating the Athletics for the second time in four starts.
He had two clean innings, the fifth and the seventh, but had to bob-and-weave around multiple runners in the others.
Still, he limited the damage to single runs in the third (two-out RBI single by Lawrence Butler) and the fourth (RBI ground out by Jacob Wilson) and left with an 8-2 lead.
Things got tight in a hurry, though. Henry Bolte hit a three-run home run off reliever Kyle Finnegan in the eighth.
Jacob Waguespack was able to get through the eighth. In the ninth, Kenley Jansen gave up a leadoff double to Tyler Soderstrom and he advanced to third on a wild pitch. After Jansen struck out Carlos Cortes and Butler, Jeff McNeil pushed a bunt down the third-base line to score Soderstrom and bring the tying run to the plate.
Jansen ended it, getting Bolte to fly out. It was his 13th save.
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers hold off Athletics while Tarik Skubal trade drama swirls
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Chris McCosky, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
