Detroit — Tarik Skubal wasn’t actually giving out game balls after the Tigers’ 11-4 win against the Athletics Tuesday on another rainy night at Comerica Park. But if he was, he’d be tossing the first one to No. 46, the guy they call Bombi.
“Player of the game,” Skubal said of right fielder Wenceel Perez. “Great offensive day. He makes those two plays in the seventh, comes in gets a knock, scores that run and then he finishes the game with that (diving) play. I mean, I don’t know outs above average or defensive runs saved, but it felt like he accumulated a good amount of WAR tonight.”
Perez ended up with two hits, two runs scored and two RBI. His two-run double in the third inning tied the game. And he scored when Dillon Dingler put the Tigers up to stay with a three-run home run. All in the third inning.
But he was just getting started.
“On both sides of the ball, Wenceel was a huge contributor to this win,” manager AJ Hinch said. “For as much as other guys get talked about, he has quietly been an instrumental part of our season since he’s come back (off the injured list).”
Certainly Riley Greene deserves a game ball. He had a four-hit night with two runs and two RBI. He raised his average to .299 and has 11 games with at least three hits, tied for most in the American League.
“He’s on a heater,” Hinch said. “It’s fun to watch him right now.”
And Kerry Carpenter, who has been scuffling, got the Tigers quickly back into the game with a 417-foot, two-run homer to right-center in the first inning.
But this was Perez’s night.
He brought the crowd (22,929) to its feet twice in the top of the seventh, throwing out two runners at second base.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen two outfield assists at second base by the same outfielder ever,” Skubal said. “I asked AJ if he’d ever seen it and he said, not by the same outfielder.”
BOX SCORE: Tigers 11, Athletics 4
“That was the first time for me, too,” Perez said.
Down three runs, Tyler Soderstrom hit a bullet over Perez’s head to start the seventh. Perez played it perfectly off the wall and fired a strike to second, shortstop Javier Báez applying a lightning-fast tag.
After Denzel Clarke dropped a broken-bat single into center, Jacob Wilson singled into the right field corner. He, too, tried to sneak an extra bag on Perez. Didn’t. Perez wheeled, threw another seed to second and Báez again applied the tag.
“Oh, so much,” Perez said when asked how much confidence it gives him knowing it’s Baez taking his throws at second base. “He is just the best at the tagging plays. I don’t know how he does it but I think he is the best at tagging out runners.”
It will go in the books as a scoreless inning for reliever Chase Lee, even though he gave up three singles and recorded only one out himself.
“I don’t you’ll see too many innings where a pitcher puts up a zero and only collects one out,” Hinch said.
Perez ignited the crowd again in the bottom of the seventh. This time with his wheels.
Greene and Perez were on first and second with two outs. Zach McKinstry, against lefty reliever Hogan Harris, lined a single to left. Third base coach Joey Cora waved Greene home, even though left fielder Soderstrom had the ball as Greene was rounding third.
But catcher Austin Wynns missed the one-hop throw and the ball went to the backstop.
Greene scored and Perez came charging home right after him.
“I slid into the third because I thought (Wynns) was going to catch it,” Perez said. “But then I saw the ball was down and Cora was waving me home. I just took off.”
For his encore, Perez ended the game with a diving catch on the right-field line, stealing extra bases from pinch-hitter Max Schuemann.
“He just loves the game of baseball,” Skubal said.
Asked which of those plays he liked the best, Perez smiled and said, “All three were the best.”
It was a very happy ending to a most unusual start for Skubal. He came in with a 16-1 record and a 1.95 ERA in his last 24 home starts and very suddenly saw a four-spot on his ledger.
“Not the way you want to start a game,” he said.
After an 81-minute weather delay at the start of the game, Skubal walked the leadoff batter, Wilson.
“So uncharacteristic,” Hinch said. “Then came the ambush.”
Brent Rooker jumped a first-pitch heater and sent it 415 feet over the bullpen in left. After getting the next five hitters, the Athletics ambushed Skubal again.
With two outs in the second, Soderstrom ripped a first-pitch single and then No. 9 hitter Clarke, who came in hitting .190 with one homer, jumped a 94-mph sinker and launched it 422 feet into the shrubbery beyond the wall in center.
“Anytime you give up four early, you have to grind to keep your team in it,” said Skubal, who did settle in and got through six innings with eight strikeouts. “It becomes almost more mental than physical. But that’s just part of the game. I’m proud of myself for grinding through it and keeping our team in it and we could start another series with a win.”
It was Skubal’s ninth straight win.
“Winning is fun,” he said. “Winning cures everything. Bad day, good day, if you walk away with a win, it doesn’t really matter, right?”
The Tigers, who are the first American League team to score 400 runs, are the first team in baseball with 50 wins.
“I don’t think this group, by any means, is satisfied,” Skubal said. “I don’t think we’ve accomplished anything. First to 50, in my eyes, doesn’t really matter. We’re going to try to get 51 tomorrow. That’s what makes this group so special. We won’t reflect on the past. We focus on where we are in the present.”
@cmccosky
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