MILWAUKEE – The Tigers haven’t played much long ball in recent weeks. But that doesn’t mean it’s not part of their offensive package.
Eric Haase and Jonathan Schoop each hit a pair of home runs Tuesday night and the Tigers rode a six-run second inning to a 10-7 win and a series split with the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field.
The Tigers jumped all over Brewers lefty Eric Lauer in the second inning. The six spot was the most they’ve scored in an inning this season. Haase hit a solo home run to start it and Schoop hit a two-run shot to cap it. In the middle, Miguel Cabrera obliterated a 0-for-19 skid with a three-run double.
It was his 400th double as a Tiger and he tied former Brewers great Robin Yount for 21st all-time with 583 doubles.
But, he had to leave the game in the sixth inning with tightness in his left groin. The Tigers said the move was precautionary.
Haase then homered to lead off the third inning, too, also off Lauer. The first one was a line drive over the wall in left. The second had an exit velocity of 101 mph and flew 407 feet over the center field wall into the batter’s eye.
He’s got four homers on the year, hitting two in two separate games. And, he became the third Tigers hitter since 1961 (in the modern era) to lead off consecutive innings with a home run. He joins Chad Curtis (1995) and Willie Horton (1968).
It was the fourth straight multi-hit game for Schoop. His second homer, his seventh on the year, gave the Tigers a three-run cushion going into the final three innings.
The Tigers tacked on two more runs in the ninth, taking advantage of two of the seven walks allowed by the Brewers pitchers. Willi Castro, who had two hits, plated one with a sacrifice fly and Nomar Mazara had a run-scoring double.
It was a disappointing outing by Tigers starter Matthew Boyd. He’d gotten two runs or less run support in six of his first 10 starts this season. This time he was staked to 6-1 and then a 7-1 lead and couldn’t get out of the fifth inning.
Boyd had allowed just three home runs in his previous 57.2 innings, but he gave up three in the first three innings Tuesday. Brewers leadoff hitter Kolten Wong hit two of them, both off sliders – a solo homer in the first and a two-run home in the third.
Rookie Tyrone Taylor, just recalled from Triple-A to replace injured Lorenzo Cain, hit a solo shot in the third. He added another solo shot in the eighth off reliever Tyler Alexander.
It was two-for-one homer night in Milwaukee.
Boyd got the first two outs in the fifth, but he was late covering first on a ground ball by Christian Yelich that should have got him out of the inning. The infield single kept the inning alive and former Tiger Avisail Garcia then ended Boyd’s night with an RBI double.
The Tigers bullpen picked him up, though. After Joe Jimenez got through the fifth, left-hander Derek Holland dispatched all six hitters he faced, striking out four of them. His two-seam fastball was sitting 95 mph and touching 96, with good movement.
He threw 16 of them and got seven swings and misses and six called strikes.
Alexander, another lefty, struck out three in the eighth, around the Taylor home run.
Gregory Soto, the fourth lefty to pitch for the Tigers in this one, gave up a solo homer to Luis Urias — the fifth home run by the Brewers, ninth of the game — before closing it out.
