Tigers top Rays on Colt Keith's two-run homer in seventh inning

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Jul 8, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — Colt Keith, fresh off a huge night Monday, provided the big hits again Tuesday, breaking a 2-2 tie with a long, two-run homer to right field, giving the Tigers a second straight win over the Tampa Bay Rays at Comerica, 4-2.

Keith, who doubled twice and slugged a solo homer in the 5-1 win in the opener, singled in the tying run in the fifth and then, with Zach McKinstry on third with two outs, shellacked a 1-0 changeup from former Tiger Edwin Uceta.

The ball left his bat at 101 mph and flew 394 feet into the right field seats. It was his eighth homer.

In the first eight days of July, Keith is 11 for 23 with three home runs and 12 RBI.

The Tigers, a MLB-best 59-34, have won five straight and are 32-14 at Comerica.

This one was a grinder.

Facing right-hander Ryan Pepiot hasn’t been much fun for the Tigers the last couple of years. Coming into the game, they’d managed just five runs and a .177 batting average against him in four games.

It was more of the same Tuesday. He struck out four of the first five hitters and allowed only three hits in his six innings of work.

But the Tigers made their hits count.

Spencer Torkelson made Pepiot pay for a hanging slider in the fourth, slamming his 21 st home run into the bullpen in left.

The Tigers then manufactured a run with a walk and a stolen base by McKinstry in the fifth. McKinstry swiped two (Nos. 12 and 13). This time he scored on Keith’s punch-single to left.

The Tigers worked six walks and we hit by pitches three times. They loaded the bases in the eighth. After two walks, Rays reliever Eric Orze hit Dillon Dingler in the faceguard with a 94 mph fastball. Dingler seemed momentarily stunned, but he stayed in the game.

Thanks to some strong work by Tigers’ starter Jack Flaherty, it was a 2-2 game after

It was a very different version of Flaherty than the one the Rays saw in Tampa on June 20. They clobbered him that day, scoring eight runs and knocking him out of the games in the third inning.

On Tuesday, Flaherty held the Rays in check for 6 1/3 innings, mixing knuckle-curveballs and sliders indiscriminately off firm and well placed four-seam fastballs.

Jonathan Aranda was the only Ray to do damage against him. He clobbered a 1-2 four-seamer that Flaherty left up and in the middle of the plate, sending his 11th homer of the season into the right field seats.

In the third, Aranda doubled on a knuckle-curve and scored on a two-strike, two-out single by Josh Lowe.

But he faced just one batter over the minimum over the next three innings and left the game with one out and one on in the seventh. He finished with eight strikeouts, with 16 whiffs and 16 called strikes, an indication of how effectively he was keeping the Rays off balance in the batter’s box.

Tommy Kahnle got the final two outs in the seventh leaving it to Tyler Holton (clean eighth) and Will Vest (scoreless ninth) to bring it home. It was the 15th save of the season for Vest.

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