James Outman changed the game with one swing, and the Detroit Tigers rode it to a 4-3 win over the Kansas City Royals on Thursday at Comerica Park in Detroit. His go-ahead homer in the seventh inning turned a late deficit into a lead the Tigers did not give back.
The shot came on a 2-2 fastball and was Outman's fourth home run of the season. In a one-run game, that mattered immediately. The Tigers were already trying to answer Isaac Collins's two-run homer in the sixth inning, which had pushed the Royals ahead 2-0 after Troy Melton had worked five scoreless innings.
Outman's blast was not the only reason the Tigers escaped with the opener of the four-game series, but it was the swing that made the rest of the comeback possible. Detroit's offense kept working after the first go-ahead hit, with Hao-Yu Lee coming off the bench as a pinch hitter in the sixth inning and later scoring from second base on Dillon Dingler's two-out RBI double in the eighth. Josh Rojas then tied it again for the Royals before Dingler's hit put the Tigers back in front for good.
The game had already been tight from the start. Melton loaded the bases with one out in the first inning, then settled in before the sixth finally broke open. Dingler also had to recover the ball after a dropped-third strikeout play at the plate in the first, a small early play that helped keep Detroit from slipping before the scoring started.
That is why Outman's homer loomed so large. The Tigers entered the night at 49-54 and needed exactly this kind of answer: a single swing that flipped the momentum before the late innings took over. They got it, and Kyle Finnegan finished the job with a save on a game-ending double play. The next test comes quickly, because the Royals are still in Detroit and the series is only getting started.
