DETROIT — Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene each hit a two-run homer, and the Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1 on Sunday.
The Tigers (70-68) earned their second series win in the last 13 against Boston and won the season series for the first time since 2017. They trail the Red Sox (70-67) by a half-game for fourth in the AL wild-card race.
Brant Hurter (3-1) pitched five innings of one-run ball for the win. He entered with two on and one out in the second and got Wilyer Abreu to bounce into a double play.
“I’ve been playing baseball for 20 years, and I’ve never gotten a first-pitch double play before,” Hurter said. “That was cool.”
Due to trades and injuries, the Tigers were down to two healthy starters for much of August. Hurter, who made his major league debut on Aug. 4, has a 3.25 ERA in six games, including one start.
“I’m a rookie, so I’m going to embrace any role they offer me,” he said.
Jason Foley, the fourth Tigers pitcher, got his 20th save with a perfect ninth.
Red Sox opener Cooper Criswell pitched four perfect innings, striking out five. But Rich Hill (0-1) and Zack Kelly faltered.
“The plan was for Coop to give us as many outs as he could and then take advantage of the matchups,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “It just didn’t work.”
Jarren Duran’s two-out RBI single lifted Boston to a 1-0 lead in the fifth, but the 44-year-old Hill issued a leadoff walk to Kerry Carpenter in the bottom half. Jace Jung struck out before Torkelson hit a drive to left for his eighth homer.
“They’ve done that with Criswell where he has pitched a couple innings and where he’s gone five or six,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We just had to react and take advantage of our opportunities.”
Greene made it 4-1 in the sixth, lining a two-run homer — his 20th — off Kelly that went just inside the right-field foul pole.
“This is awesome,” said Greene, who reached 20 homers for the first time. “I’m trying to do things that help the team win, and I think that’s a sign of what I have been able to do.”
Greene was the fifth pick in the 2019 amateur draft, and Torkelson was the first overall choice a year later. They are supposed to be the offensive cornerstones of Detroit’s rebuild, but this was only the second time they have homered in the same game.
“I saw that swing and the ball just popped off his bat,” Greene said. “That was a huge homer for us.”
Boston’s search for late-game offence led to Cora playing Conner Wong in left field for his first appearance in the outfield since college.
“There’s not much going on right now, and that’s been true for a while now,” Cora said. “It’s not even that we are hitting the ball hard right at guys — we’re not even doing that.”
UP NEXT
The Red Sox return home for a three-game series with the New York Mets. Neither team had announced their pitching plans for the Labor Day opener.
Detroit flies across the country for a holiday afternoon game against the San Diego Padres. The game comes two days after the Tigers honoured their 1984 championship team, which beat the Padres in the World Series in five games. The teams have Tuesday off before finishing the series on Wednesday and Thursday.
