Detroit Tigers swept Kansas City Royals with 10-9 walk-off victory

The Tigers ran their winning streak to six with a walk-off against the Royals at a waterlogged Comerica Park on Thursday afternoon.

Detroit — Hey, look who’s back.

“It was kind of like last year, a little bit of the Gritty Tigs,” outfielder Riley Greene said. “It was pretty cool to see.

“It was fun to be a part of.”

Fun, indeed, for the Tigers, even if it took a while to get there.

Greene laced a two-run, two-out double down the first-base line to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth inning, then two pitches later, Colt Keith drove a winning RBI single to right as the Tigers rallied past the Kansas City Royals, 10-9, on a gloomy (in the beginning) Thursday afternoon at a giddy (in the end) Comerica Park.

The walk-off winner secured the sweep of the Royals — heck, the sweep of the home stand, too — and extended the Tigers’ winning streak to six. It was the first time they’ve swept a home stand of six games or more since July 2021, when they had a 7-0 home stand. They’re now back over .500, at 10-9. A week ago, they were 4-9.

They won three one-run games against the Royals, all with late-inning dramatics.

And they won Thursday afternoon’s game despite blowing a 6-1 lead, and despite having to wait through four delays — two lengthy rain delays, and two shorter umpire-illness delays.

“A crazy game to say the least,” said Tigers manager AJ Hinch, whose team is a major-league-best 8-1 at home. “You’ve gotta play all nine (innings) and see what happens, even when you get put in a little bit of disarray.

“It’s important to keep playing.”

The win marked the Tigers’ first walk-off win since last September, and it was compliments of Keith, who celebrated the first walk-off hit of his major-league career.

He stood on first base and raised his arms, like a prize fighter, before his teammates raced toward him, and eventually decided he longer needed his jersey top.

They ripped it off of him in celebration.

“It’s a great feeling,” Keith said in a happy locker room afterward, after having found a new shirt, this one a comfortable Tigers hoodie. “Obviously, to walk-off any game is a great feeling.

“This is amazing for me to be able to do that in a big-league stadium.”

The Tigers entered the bottom of the ninth inning trailing, 9-7, and facing Royals closer Lucas Erceg, the league-leader with five saves. Much of the crowd of 15,034 had left innings earlier, during the second long rain delay of the day, which happened to come just as the Royals capped off a six-run outburst to take an 8-6 lead.

BOX SCORE: Tigers 10, Royals 9

Gleyber Torres led off with a single to right, and Kevin McGonigle followed with a walk, awarded after he correctly challenged a sinker that missed on the outside. (He was 2-for-2 on challenges on the afternoon, had a triple, and made a web gem, apparently still plenty motivated and good the day after signing a $150-million contract.)

That put two on and nobody out, but Ercig then struck out Kerry Carpenter, and Dillon Dingler lined out sharply to second base. It was looking like a 5-1 home stand. Not bad. But not good enough for Greene, who turned on a 90-mph change-up and scorched it down the line at first base to tie the game, setting up the heroics for Keith, who likewise teed off on a change-up.

“We’re hot,” said McGonigle, “and we’re looking to continue to stay hot.”

Keith, who entered the game earlier as a pinch-hitter, now is hitting .317. McGonigle is hitting .309. They’re the top two hitters on the team early in 2026, two home-grown products who both signed long-term contracts, Keith before he even played a single major-league game, and McGonigle 17 games into his major-league career.

The Tigers took the early lead in the series finale, on a two-out RBI double by Spencer Torkelson in the second inning off Royals lefty starter Kris Bubic. They then tacked on in the fourth, on a two-out RBI single by Vierling, picking up Dillon Dingler, who was thrown out at home plate by the bionic arm of Royals right fielder Jac Castiglione (his second assist in two days, and he probably should’ve had three). That made it 2-1.

The Tigers broke it open with four runs in the fifth inning, when Javier Baez drew a one-out walk, and Torres brought him in with an RBI double. After McGonigle flew out, Jahmai Jones, making his first start of the season (Detroit hasn’t faced hardly any lefties), picked up his first hit of the season, another two-out RBI single. That ended Bubic’s day, bringing in Royals reliever (and former Tiger and Gibraltar native) John Schreiber. Dingler greeted him rudely, sending his 79-mph sweeper 411 feet to left for his third homer, and a 6-2 Tigers lead.

That made it look like an easier path to victory than the previous two days, especially with Keider Montero, in his third start filling in for Justin Verlander, cruising right along. His pitch count was in the 70s through six innings, so Hinch sent him back out for the seventh.

But a storm was brewing (on multiple fronts). The first two batters reached against Montero, and that was it for him. That brought in Drew Anderson, whose transition from the KBO back to the major leagues remains a work in progress. He struggled again, though to be fair, he was forced to sit through a 10-minute delay while the umpiring crew scrambled to sub out plate ump Andy Fletcher, who had to leave with an apparent stomach bug that caused a brief delay four innings earlier, too.

Anderson faced four batters, and three of them reached, and the only out was a conceded out on a sac bunt. Tyler Holton took over, and he got Vinnie Pasquantino to line out for the second out of the inning. That set up a battle with Royals veteran Salvador Perez. What a battle it was. Perez won the battle.

On the 10th pitch of the at-bat, a Holton change-up, he hit a towering, three-run home run to left field. It was his third homer of the year. It was an 8-6 Royals lead. And Perez had barely crossed home plate before the grounds crew stormed the field, to get the tarp on, with another storm fast and furiously approaching downtown Detroit.

That delay sent a whole lot of fans to the exits, their mood soured. It didn’t sour the Tigers, though.

“We stayed locked in the whole time,” Keith said.

That delay lasted more than 30 minutes (if you’re keeping score at home, between the four delays, two rain and two umpire, there were nearly two hours of delays), but the Tigers came out swinging back. Facing new Royals pitcher Nick Mears, McGonigle led off the seventh inning with a triple up the alley in right-center (of his 21 hits, nine have been for extra bases), and Kerry Carpenter, pinch-hitting for Jones, scored McGonigle with a sacrifice fly.

Dingler then made a bid for a triple, hitting the ball up that same right-center alley — and a triple would’ve given him a possible bid for the cycle, as he already had homered and doubled earlier — but Kyle Isbel made a magnificent sliding catch to rob him. Good thing for the Royals, because Greene also went right-center alley shopping for a double, but was stranded when Keith, pinch-hitting for Vierling, grounded out to keep it 8-7 Royals.

The Royals tacked on in the top of the ninth inning when Pasquantino hit his first homer of the season, to right off Connor Seabold (1-0) to make it 9-7. It seemed like a big insurance run.

As it turns out, it only added to the dramatics — and the latest chapter, in Greene’s estimation, of the Gritty Tigs.

“Part of our DNA is our willingness to do anything, but the other part that comes with that is we’re going to play till the end, and we’ve had to do that,” Hinch said. “Our guys play our 27 outs.”

Said Greene, who had the 100th (big) and 101st (bigger) double of his major-league career, before the Tigers got going on some last-minute packing for their four-game wraparound series at Fenway Park in Boston: “We’re gonna take it into Boston, you know, ride the momentum and keep going.”

tpaul@detroitnews.com

@tonypaul1984

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