Detroit — The Tigers enjoyed themselves a good, old-fashioned Sunday Funday.
It took just seven batters into the game for the Tigers to match their run-scoring offense from the previous five games, and only nine batters to match it from the previous six games.
In the end, the Tigers pummeled the Chicago White Sox, 11-2, to take two out of three in the series before a plenty appreciative crowd of 22,975 at Comerica Park. Detroit (36-41) as a team hit for the cycle in the first inning, and Colt Keith, Akil Baddoo, Riley Greene and Zach McKinstry homered. Keith finished a triple shy of the cycle by himself.
BOX SCORE Tigers 11, White Sox 2
"Every day's a challenge, and you try to enjoy these," said AJ Hinch, whose team had lost five of its previous six games, and scored just six runs in doing so. "Because we had a really good game. We had really good at-bats.
"It was a really good offensive day for us. It continues to demonstrate to us that we're very capable."
For a day, anyway.
The Tigers jumped all over White Sox starter Jonathan Cannon (1-2) with five hits, including two homers, in the first inning, then sent him packing from the game when the first three batters reached in the second inning. Cannon recorded just three outs, and allowed eight runs (five earned).
Lefty Jared Shuster was summoned to face left-handed-hitting Greene with two on, and Greene — perhaps in honor of the PGA Tour's Rocket Mortgage Classic, coming to Detroit this week — lofted a pitching-wedge-esque homer the opposite way to make it 9-0 before all the fans on a gorgeous summer afternoon had made it to their seats.
Detroit's breakout with the bats was a welcome sight for a team that hadn't scored more than two runs in a game in its previous six. It had been held to one or zero in five of those.
It was all more than plenty for Tigers starter Reese Olson (2-8), who breezed his way through six innings, with three strikeouts and no walks. He allowed just four hits, and left to a rousing ovation with two on and one out in the seventh inning. Will Vest allowed a two-run single to Nicky Lopez, before getting out of the inning.
Olson threw 97 pitches, and 59 for strikes, as he had command of the fastball and a sharp slider, too much for a White Sox offense that did get Eloy Jimenez back from the injured list. He did have a single.
Olson stuck with his game plan, even as, in a rare scene in 2024, the Tigers gave him a whole lot of run support, leaving him sitting on the bench for long stretches in the first and second innings.
"Happy to sit, obviously," Olson, who used a sharp slider to keep the White Sox spinning most of the afternoon, said with a smile. "Everyone's having fun. Everyone's loose.
"It's big for the morale. It's fun, for sure."
Relievers Tyler Holton and Joey Wentz finished the game for the Tigers, each with a scoreless inning.
The Tigers took a second series in as many tries this season from the lowly White Sox, who fell to 21-58. The Tigers now have the mighty Philadelphia Phillies, with old friends Nick Castellanos on the field and Dave Dombrowski off the field, coming to Comerica Park for a three-game series, starting Monday.
Sunday was the first day in a week where the temperature finally dipped into the 70s and 80s, and the Tigers celebrated by turning up the heat with some blazing bats from jump street. Matt Vierling led off the game with a rocket triple to the gap in left-center, and came home on Keith's opposite-field homer to left-center, just missing the glove of the Pizza! Pizza! dude atop the bullpens. It was Keith's fourth homer of the year.
Mark Canha then reached on a throwing error (originally ruled a single) by shortstop Paul DeJong, Wenceel Perez followed with a double, and Gio Urshela brought one run home with a groundout. It was his 300th career RBI. Then, Baddoo pummeled a pitch into the stands in right field, for a two-run homer and a 5-0 lead. It was his second homer since his call-back to Detroit. He came into the game batting .121.
The Tigers, as a team, hit for the cycle in the first inning for the first time since 2006.
"We were able to get to some pitches early," Vierling said.
Early, and often.
The second inning then began with five consecutive hits by the Tigers, starting with singles from Jake Rogers and Vierling, followed by an RBI single from Keith — again the opposite way, and marking his first career three-RBI game. That brought in Shuster, who was unceremoniously greeted by Greene's 15th homer of the season.
The only Tiger starter without at least one hit (five had multiple hits) was Urshela, but he sure was a hit at third base, making a pair of spectacular plays in the first and third innings. Vierling also made a fine running catch in center field, on a day the Tigers were clicking, for once, on all cylinders.
McKinstry, who came in batting .174, hit second homer of the season in the seventh, off White Sox reliever Chad Kuhl. McKinstry doubled earlier.
Perez's RBI single in the eighth, also of Kuhl, capped the scoring. Perez had three of the Tigers' 16 hits, which were fourth-most on the season as they teed off on the White Sox steady diet of sinkers, and consistently went the opposite way up and down the lineup.
The four home runs are tied for second on the Tigers' season; it's just the third time they've hit four in a game. They had hit one, total, in their previous six games. It also marked the seventh time the Tigers have scored in double digits. Old "Sunday Punch" himself, Paw Paw's Charlie Maxwell, would be proud.
"That was a lot of fun," Keith said. "Us as a team really needed it."
Keith, who is hitting .385 over his last 10 games, also had a pop-up double in the fourth inning, as DeJong drifted on it and saw it fall, putting him a triple shy of the cycle. Keith singled in his final at-bat, for a four-hit day, already his third of his rookie season. But Carlos Guillen remains the last Tiger to hit for the cycle, all the way back in 2006. That's a long, long way from now, and this Tigers ballclub, having won just five of their last 16 games, and that Tigers team are light years apart.
But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a Sunday Funday every once in a while.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
