Tigers' bats wake up to back Keider Montero gem in win over Astros

After a few frustrating nights at the plate, the Detroit Tigers‘ offense broke through in a big way against the Houston Astros on Friday, June 26, at Comerica Park.

The Tigers (35-47) snapped a three-game losing streak with an 8-0 win over Houston in the second game of a four-game series. All eight runs came in the third and fourth innings, on six hits and five walks, including home runs from Kerry Carpenter, James Outman and Colt Keith.

Friday’s eight runs surpassed the total from the losing streak, in which Detroit mustered six runs over three games.

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The runs were way more than enough for Tigers starter Keider Montero against the Astros (40-44), who entered Friday tied (with three other teams) for the American League’s third and final wild-card spot and just 1½ back in the AL West. The right-hander blanked Houston’s offense across seven innings by inducing consistent weak contact and attacking the strike zone. Montero moves to 4-5 on the season while lowering his season ERA to 3.39 from 3.68.

The Tigers got things going offensively with a leadoff walk from center fielder James Outman – the No. 9 hitter – in the third inning. Kevin McGonigle then delivered the team’s first hit with a single down the first base line to put runners at the corners.

McGonigle stole second while Dillon Dingler swung and missed on strike three. Dingler’s swing increased the difficulty of the throw to second for Houston catcher Yainer Diaz, who sent it sailing to the outfield to allow Outman to score.

Then, Kerry Carpenter unloaded on a Spencer Arrighetti fastball at the top of the zone for a 408-foot no-doubt home run to right, putting Detroit ahead, 3-0.

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Colt Keith added to the total with a towering solo home run in the fourth inning. Keith turned on an inside cutter for a home run that narrowly cleared the right field wall next to the foul pole. His home run went 341 feet with a 45-degree launch angle.

Outman followed it up with a 407-foot 3-run home run, yet again into the right-field seats, later in the fourth inning to put Detroit ahead 7-0 and break the game open. Dingler added one more insurance run with an RBI single, giving him a career high in RBIs (58) before the end of June.

Montero faced the minimum number of batters the first time through the lineup. The Astros produced five hits over the next four innings off Montero, but could not drive in any runs.

Montero only struck out three batters, but avoided the barrels of bats to induce weak contact for easy outs and only walked one batter. Only six of Houston’s 22 batted balls off Montero resulted in a “hard hit” qualification on Statcast and the average exit velocity was 83.1 mph. The Astros whiffed 13 times on 53 swings against Montero.

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He relied on a heavy fastball diet, throwing 35 sinkers and 24 four-seam fastballs. Two of his three strikeouts came on sinkers against lefty slugger Yordan Alvarez, who leads the AL in home runs and ranks second in batting average. In the first inning, Montero froze Alvarez with a front-door sinker on the inside corner. Then, he blew a high sinker past him in the sixth inning.

Houston had runners reach scoring position in the sixth and seventh innings, but Montero escaped the jams. Emmanuel De Jesus pitched the final two innings of relief to complete the Tigers’ first shutout since June 11.

Tigers left-hander Framber Valdez (4-5, 3.91 ERA) will face off against his former team on Saturday (1:10 p.m., Detroit SportsNet, Peacock). Houston will start right-hander Kai-Wei Teng (4-6, 4.03 ERA). It is the third game of a four-game series at Comerica Park.

Contact Jared Ramsey at jramsey@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers’ bats wake up to back Keider Montero gem in win over Astros