J.D. Martinez hit reliever Heath Hembree’s first pitch to him with one out in the seventh onto the walkway between the two seating sections in left center to bring Detroit within a run at 3-2.
Advertisement
Not his efforts on behalf of the Red Sox, where he is the chief executive, but his work of last July when he was still president, CEO and general manger of the Tigers.
Justin Upton hit a pair of three-run homers and the struggling Detroit Tigers finished their homestand with a 10-5 win over the Boston Red Sox on Sunday.
Heath Hembree pitched the eighth and Fernando Abad the ninth for Boston. Kinsler was well positioned and needed to move only slightly to his right to make the play on Betts’ liner.
Porcello will get his chance to show off his fancy new skills Friday at Comerica Park when he pitches against his old team.
The Tigers will look string together their second straight win after rallying in the eighth inning and escaping with a 4-3 win Thursday to snap a three-game skid. The small progress was quickly erased when McCann, Aybar and Maybin hit singles off Junichi Tazawa to score two more.
Sandy Leon homered for Boston. In fact, he only had seven hits all of August before re-entering the lineup Saturday and continuing his success Sunday. The Red Sox won the last game 3-2, and Boston leads the series 2-1.
Brad Ziegler came on and allowed a tying single to Victor Martinez.
Justin Upton has been “back” about a half dozen times already this season – spoiler alert: none of those proclamations were true – but Sunday afternoon felt like the real thing. The two-run shot gave him 1,500 RBIs with the Red Sox.
“We gave him four runs in the first inning, and then he just did what he has done for us all year”, said Hanley Ramirez, who drove in four runs.
Daniel Norris (1-2) took the loss, giving up three runs and eight hits in his five innings. Casey McGehee of the Tigers was initially called out when center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. made a diving attempt on his flyball in right-center.
Porcello, a familiar face who spent six seasons with the Tigers, returns to his first big-league home but has put Detroit in his rearview mirror as the Red Sox are fixated on the playoff chase, writes Lynn Henning.
Boston third base coach Brian Butterfield was then ejected while Saltalamacchia batted. Martinez ends up putting the bat on the ball on a changeup that was off the plate away, and pokes it inside the first base bag.
Advertisement
It’s going, it’s going, and it’s not gone? RHP Steven Wright (shoulder) is expected to miss at least one more start, but could start throwing off a mound this weekend. Boston has lost just two of its last 10. The Pedroia single signaled the end of the night for Fulmer whose final line read 5.2 IP, 10 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, and 1 K. The Tigers offense continued to get shut down by Porcello through the middle frames as they mustered just two hits.
