Detroit — Something happens to Kerry Carpenter when the opposing pitcher is wearing a Seattle Mariners’ uniform.
He goes into beast mode.
“I can’t explain it,” he said. “God’s grace.”
His two-run home run off Bryan Woo in the third inning sent the Tigers to a 7-3 win over the Mariners on a rainy Friday night at Comerica Park.
It was their fourth straight win in June and for Carpenter, it was his ninth career homer against the Mariners, including the two he hit in the American League Division Series last October.
“It’s weird because their pitchers are so good,” Carpenter said. “They’ve struck me out a lot and I happened to get them a little bit. I love playing them. I love playing them here but also in Seattle, too. My wife’s family is from out there.”
Woo possesses one of the nastiest four-seam fastballs in the game (plus-9 run value per Statcast), but he seemed committed to throwing his slider to Carpenter. Not a horrible idea, since hitters were 5 for 24 against it with no homers.
“He has one of the best fastballs in baseball and I was on that,” Carpenter said. “I was just trying to pick up the spin as best I could. A guy like that, I wouldn’t want to sit off-speed.”
But if that’s all you see…
Woo threw him four straight sliders in the first inning before striking him out chasing a 97-mph heater. Second time up, Carpenter whiffed on a first-pitch slider but stayed on the next one, lofting it just over the yellow line atop the wall in right field.
“We were just taking what (Woo) gave us,” said manager AJ Hinch said of the Tigers’ nine hits off Woo in 6.1 innings. “You’ve got to be ready for his fastball and he was bullying us early. He’s really good and you can’t cover everything in every at-bat. We did a great job of staying grounded to what we were doing.
“And Carp, that was a really big blow early because it was so hard to get that big hit off Woo.”
It was Carpenter’s eighth homer of the season and second since coming off the injured list earlier this week. Spencer Torkelson added a two-run homer, his ninth in the eighth to make the ending comfortable. It was the club’s 12th homer in June after hitting 18 all of May.
“We really want to put that last month behind us,” Carpenter said. “Whether it was just turning the calendar or what, for some reason we’ve been able to put that behind us. We did it last year when we struggled in September and came out of that winning a playoff series in Cleveland. It’s something that’s hard to explain why we were so bad in May.
“But it’s not something that is going to define us this year.”
BOX SCORE: Tigers 7, Mariners 3
The presence of Carpenter and Glyber Torres back in the lineup has been the catalyst. Torres, who had three more hits at the top of the order Friday, including a clutch, two-run double in the seventh, is 7 for 13 in his three games back from the injured list.
“It’s awesome to be back in the lineup,” Carpenter said. “I feel like I’m getting helped because Greeney (Riley Greene, who had two hits) is behind me. And I hope I’m helping (Dillon) Dingler by hitting behind him. And Gleyber sets the tone so well at the top.”
Torres and rookie Kevin McGonigle, who hit the ball hard three times and had one hit, both set the tone against Woo.
“I feel like we’re always hitting with runners on base, which is awesome,” Carpenter said. “It’s really a lot easier to hit when there’s guys on base and runners in scoring position. But I also feel like it gives us confidence when you go up and the first two guys are all over one of the best fastballs in the game. We’re seeeing that and it’s like, ‘OK, let’s go.’
“Those guys aren’t struggling, even though Bryan Woo is so good. It gives us confidence that we can be on that guy today.”
That is what Hinch means when he talks about connecting at-bats. Every player in the Tigers lineup got at least one hit Friday night. That was not happening in May.
“There’s no taking our identity from a certain stretch of games and letting that haunt us the rest of the year,” Carpenter said. “That would be such a disservice.”
The Mariners, first place in the American League West, did not go quietly, even though they lost their shortstop, J.P. Crawford in the third inning after he was hit by a pitch in his wrist or hand.
They grinded starter Framber Valdez for 102 pitches over five innings but he never stopped competing. He faced eight hitters with at least one runner in scoring position and allowed just one hit.
“I wasn’t putting my head down,” said Valdez, through interpreter Carlos Guillen. “I was trying to go as deep as I could and it was in my mind, ‘I’m not going to let them score. I am not going to let them score.’ I am grateful for my teammates for scoring the runs and for making plays behind me to save runs.”
There were two pivotal at-bats in the game and the Tigers won them both.
With the Tigers up 3-1 in the fifth, Valdez walked Julio Rodriguez and Randy Arozarena with two outs, throwing nine balls in a 10-pitch stretch. And his pitch count went over 100 when he went 3-2 on lefty-swinging Josh Naylor.
Valdez didn’t buckle. He got Naylor to bounce out to first on a slider.
“Framber made some huge pitches,” Hinch said. “This is a team, other than the playoffs last year, we don’t play them a ton. Framber has. He’s played them a lot through his whole career (when he was in Houston). He’s got a lot of history with that lineup, especially at the top. He had to battle and he did.”
Then in the eighth, the Mariners had runners on first and second and one out and had already scored to cut the lead to 5-3. Hinch summoned right-hander Kyle Finnegan to replace lefty Tyler Holton and he struck out lefty pinch-hitter Luke Raley and got Colt Emerson, who had hit an opposite-field homer in the seventh off Drew Anderson, to bounce out to first.
“Framber and Finnegan, they arguably had the biggest at-bats of the game,” Hinch said.
The climb is still steep. At 26-38, the Tigers are 9.5 games behind Cleveland in the Central Division and 5.5 game back in the wild card race.
“It just feels good to get the win and put that month behind us even more,” Carpenter said. “I think we’re showing the type of team we can be when we are playing at our best. Just have to keep riding it.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers keep good times rolling with 7-3 win over Mariners in opener
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Chris McCosky, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
