PHOENIX _ This is how Justin Wilson's closing tenure had to begin.
It had to start Tuesday night, mere hours after he was named the Detroit Tigers' closer, entering the game in the bottom of the ninth inning with a four-run lead, the team's final frame outlook optimistic for the first time in 48 hours.
In his first look as the full time closer, Wilson did not disappoint.
He pitched a scoreless ninth inning as the Tigers beat the Diamondbacks, 7-3, to move back over the .500 mark on the season.
For the second straight start, ace righty Justin Verlander received ample run support from a Tigers offense that did their job against lefty Robbie Ray.
Verlander's day started erratically, without much command and with a lot of pitches, but he righted the ship in the middle innings and recorded his fifth quality start in seven innings.
The Tigers jumped on Ray early, with a Nick Castellanos RBI single in the first inning and a James McCann solo home run in the second inning. McCann's home run was his seventh of the season, which leads the team. It was his fourth off a lefty pitcher and traveled into the pool area in right-centerfield at Chase Field.
Verlander coughed up the lead an inning later, in the bottom of the third, when he allowed three runs on four hits. They would be the last he allowed.
Miguel Cabrera _ who allegedly missed a home run by mere feet in the third inning _ tied the score with a missile double to centerfield in the top of the fifth, followed by a two-run single by Mikie Mahtook.
In the third, Cabrera hit a line drive into the Diamondbacks bullpen down the leftfield line. The ball appeared to curl around the pole but the play was not reviewed.
Verlander was pretty good. He didn't have nearly his best stuff and had a pitch count of 70 after three innings but reigned that in with 18 pitches over the fourth and fifth. He came back out for the seventh but allowed the first two men to reach base.
Then, the Tigers bullpen, which excluding Francisco Rodriguez has been shut down for the better part of the past week, picked up where it left off. Blaine Hardy retired one man and Shane Greene struck out the next two in seventh inning.
Alex Wilson pitched a scoreless eighth.
Offensively, the Tigers delivered eight hits, many of them timely.
In his return to Arizona, where he played the first six seasons of his career, Justin pton hit his sixth home run of the season, a laser over the centerfield wall. Castellanos drove in a run on a bases loaded walk in the ninth inning.
