A ninth-inning rally by Detroit failed on Saturday as they lost 4-2 to the Baltimore Orioles.
Gunnar Henderson hit a home run and a double to help the Baltimore Orioles win.
The Tigers trailed 4-0 in the ninth inning on Saturday, but Parker Meadows ended Detroit’s 15-inning scoreless streak with a home run off Seranthony Domínguez. Colt Keith followed with a single, but Domínguez retired Kerry Carpenter and Riley Greene with deep fly balls.
Henderson drove in two runs and scored twice to help the Orioles move within two games of the AL East-leading Yankees. The All-Star shortstop tripled with two outs in the ninth inning for Baltimore’s lone hit in a 1-0 loss to Detroit on Friday night.
Wenceel Pérez grounded out, but reached first when the ball ran away from James McCann. Spencer Torkelson made it 4-2 with an RBI single before Zach McKinstry grounded out to first.
The Tigers (76-73) had won five of six as they try to track down the Twins for the third AL wild card.
Corbin Burnes (14-8) threw seven innings of two-hit batters for Baltimore, striking out seven and walking one.
Beau Brieske threw a scoreless first inning, becoming the first Tigers pitcher to start back-to-back days since Hal Newhouser in 1946.
He retired the first four batters he faced on Friday, but walked the first two batters he faced on Saturday before Anthony Santander grounded into a 3-6-1 double play. He then struck out Adley Rutschman to record an MLB-record fourth consecutive start without allowing a hit.
After drawing a walk early in the game, Henderson doubled off Ty Madden in the third inning (1-1) and scored on a single by Cedric Mullins.
Baltimore scored three more runs in the seventh inning.
With one out, Kenta Maeda hit Emmanuel Rivera with a pitch. Rivera took third on Livan Soto’s double and scored on McCann’s sacrifice fly. Henderson followed with a 106.7-mph line drive into the service tunnel behind the right-field fence.
Henderson has 37 homers on the season. He has scored 113 runs, the most by an Oriole since Roberto Alomar’s franchise record of 132 in 1996.
NEXT
The teams wrap up the series on Sunday afternoon in a game that has been moved to 12:10 p.m. to accommodate the Lions-Buccaneers game next door at Ford Field. Baltimore LHP Cade Povich (2-8, 5.91 ERA) takes on RHP Keider Montero (5-6, 4.88 ERA).
