DETROIT — A bona-fide pitcher’s duel broke out at Comerica Park Thursday night.
Texas’ veteran left-hander Martin Perez and Tigers’ rookie righty Beau Brieske traded zeros for five-plus innings. Perez was keeping the Tigers off balance with a mix of change-ups, sinkers and cutters. Brieske limited the Rangers to three singles, expertly locating sliders and change-ups off mid-90s four-seam fastballs.
The rookie won the battle. But the Rangers won the war.
Tigers closer Gregory Soto gave up three runs in the top of the ninth inning and Texas took the first game of four at Comerica Park, 3-1, extending the Tigers' losing streak to five games.
Soto walked Corey Seager to start the inning. He asked the grounds crew to come out and work on the mound. Then he took a comebacker from Adolis Garcia off the back of his leg but was able to get the out at first.
Still, he wasn't looking comfortable or confident. He hit Kole Calhoun to put two on. With two outs, he walked Nathaniel Lowe to load the bases. Ezequiel Duran hit Soto's 28th pitch inside the bag at first base and into the right-field corner.
Three runs scored, erasing a career-best start by Brieske.
Brieske ended up pitching seven shutout innings. It was the longest outing of his young career and he’s now on a run of 13 straight scoreless innings — the longest by a Tigers' rookie since Michael Fulmer in 2016.
The Rangers stacked their lineup with six left-handed hitters and Brieske smartly countered his elite change-up and vastly-improved slider.
He got six whiffs on 17 swings at the slider and virtually no hard contact on any of his pitches. The average exit velocity on the 16 balls put in play against him was a meek 84 mph.
He got nine groundball outs and six strikeouts.
The Tigers broke the seal in the sixth inning. Willi Castro, called out on strikes his first two times up, led off with a single and went to third on a 413-foot ground-rule double to center by Javier Baez.
It was the best swing Baez has had in a long time, but he was denied an RBI when the ball one-hopped into the shrubs. Had it not, Castro would have scored easily.
That left it up to Robbie Grossman to deliver the run, which he did with a sacrifice fly to right.
The Tigers nearly broke through against Perez in the third inning. With Eric Haase (two hits) on second, Miguel Cabrera ripped his second single of the night to right field. The ball left his bat with an exit velocity of 107 mph and it got to right-fielder Garcia on two hops.
Third base coach Ramon Santiago aggressively sent Haase home. Hard to fault him giving how much the Tigers have struggled to score runs. But Garcia threw a seed and Haase was out at that plate.
Brieske got into a little jam in the fifth. Catcher Jonah Heim led off the inning by pushing a bunt to the shift-vacated left side of the infield. Lowe followed with a single. Brieske, though, got Duran to hit a liner to the right of shortstop Baez.
Baez snagged it and doubled Heim off second. Rally thwarted.
In the sixth, Brieske walked Marcus Semien with one out and then fell into a 2-0 hole against Seager. But he helped himself by making a quick move to first base and picking off Semien.
The inning ended with an outstanding catch by first baseman Spencer Torkelson who reached as far as he could into the Rangers’ dugout and snow-coned a foul pop by Garcia.
Brieske ended his night by punching out Calhoun and Heim and getting Lowe to ground out in the seventh.
Fulmer worked a scoreless eighth inning.
