DETROIT — Ron Gardenhire said it the other day.
“The goal is to win, I don’t care how we do it.”
The Tigers won four of their first six games with an offense powered almost exclusively by the home-run ball. They entered the game Thursday with a league-leading 12 dingers.
Make that a major league-leading 15, they hit three more Thursday.
Miguel Cabrera, hit a pair of them, denting seats in right field and left field, and Jonathan Schoop homered for the third consecutive game.
Three solo home runs on this night, though, was insufficient.
The Royals scratched across a run off reliever Jose Cisnero in the seventh inning to break a 2-2 tie and went on to beat the Tigers 5-3 and gain a split of the four-game series at Comerica Park.
It was the first run scored against the Tigers’ bullpen in 10 innings, and it started, as most of the Royals’ scoring innings do, with Whit Merrifield. He was held hitless for the first time 17 games against the Tigers, but with one out Cisnero hit him with a pitch.
Jorge Soler followed with a double, advancing Merrifield to third. That was the first hit surrendered by the Tigers’ bullpen after 27 straight outs. Merrifield scored on a ground out by Salvador Perez.
Other than the home run balls, the Tigers’ offense produced five singles. They only advanced one other runner as far as second base.
The Royals gave themselves a cushion with two runs in the eighth off newest Tigers reliever Carson Fulmer. Singles by Alex Gordon and Adalberto Mondesi — each with three hits on the night — set the table for pinch-hitter Bubba Starling, who smacked a two-run double.
The Tigers did bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning against former Detroiter Trevor Rosenthal. Cameron Maybin led off with an infield single, pulling up lame as he sprinted down the line.
He came out of the game, replaced by Victor Reyes.
JaCoby Jones, one of the hottest hitters in the league, came up with two outs, but grounded out to end it.
Wasted was a strong start by veteran Ivan Nova, who limited the Royals to two runs over 5 2/3 innings. His curve ball was giving the Royals’ hitters fits. He threw 28 of them (out of 83 pitches) and got eight swings and misses and six called strikes. Only one was put in play.
Still, he seemed vexed by the defensive shifts the Tigers were deploying against the Royals left-handed hitters. Four of the eight hits he allowed, including RBI singles by Ryan O’Hearn and Franchy Cordero — both left-handed hitters.
Switch-hitter Mondesi also got two hits against the shift, batting left-handed.
That, as much as anything, might be why Gardenhire elected to bring in left-hander Tyler Alexander with two outs in the sixth. Mondesi had just collected his second hit, pushing Alex Gordon to third. Nova, again, was visibly frustrated seeing Mondesi’s routine ground ball roll through the vacated left side of the infield.
The Royals countered Alexander’s arrival with right-handed pinch-hitter Ryan McBroom. After falling behind 3-1, Alexander got him to foul out to right field. A big out at the time.
Cabrera came into the game with just two hits in 22 at-bats, but as Gardenhire pointed out before the game, he was hitting a lot of balls hard that were ending up defenders’ gloves.
Cabrera decided to take the fielders out of the equation. The two home runs, his 40th multi-homer game and first since 2016, put him at 480 for his career — 30th all-time on the MLB charts.
He has three home runs on the year in seven games. He hit his third home run in Game 55 last year.
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