Blue Jays deal Tigers their 10th loss in last 11 games

Tony Paul, The Detroit News on Jul 24, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — The Detroit Tigers broke out a new home run celebration early Thursday night, but it was the same old stuck-in-the-mud offense that led to the once-upon-a-time best team in baseball's latest defeat.

The Blue Jays got to Reese Olson for five runs in the sixth inning and to Dietrich Enns for four more in the seventh in blowing out the Tigers, 11-4, before a large and relatively evenly split crowd on a sweltering night at Comerica Park.

The loss was the Tigers' 10th in their last 11 games, the latest after having a first-inning lead on a home run by Jahmai Jones. Detroit, whose lead in the American League Central has been cut from 14 games to eight over Cleveland in the last couple weeks, has won just one game since July 8.

The Tigers had just four more hits through eight innings after the home run Thursday, despite facing a left-hander in Eric Lauer (6-2). The Tigers, of course, have typically feasted on lefty pitching this season.

All of the four other hits off Lauer were singles — two by Dillon Dingler — and one gifted to Javier Baez in the eighth inning when Blue Jays second baseman Leo Jimenez and first baseman Will Wagner collided on a high pop-up that fell fair.

That all put the onus on Olson (4-4), who was dynamite through the first five innings, attacking the Blue Jays' dangerous lineup. But the Blue Jays — who came in as the hottest team in baseball, facing the coldest — could only be kept quiet for so long. Olson got the first out in the fifth inning, and then the floodgates opened, with Vladimir Guerrero's double down the line in left field scoring the first run.

Four batters later, it was 5-1, after back-to-back homers by Ernie Clement (396 feet, off a slider) and Joey Loperfido (394 feet, 197.2 mph off the bat, on a change-up).

Olson's last batter was a hit batter, which had Tigers manager AJ Hinch hopping out of the dugout so fast, you'd think his hair was on fire. Enns got the last out of the sixth, but little in the eighth.

Guerrero added another RBI on a single, and Addison Berger added a two-run triple. He scored on Clement's sacrifice fly to make it 9-1. Lukes made it 11-1 with a two-run homer in the eighth inning off the newest Tigers reliever, Geoff Hartlieb. Lukes' blast went 420 feet, on a slider.

It got so bad, even Tigers legend Willie Horton, in attendance wearing a No. 23 Motor City connect jersey, couldn't bring himself to stay for the entire game, the Tigers' first at home since July 13. He was joined to the early exits by much of the announced crowd of 30,051, before "Don't Stop Believin" began playing before the bottom of the eighth.

Late in the Tigers' broadcast, they spent a half-inning showing a squirrel on the field. Appropriate.

Of course, they missed the best entertainment of the night, Tigers catcher Jake Rogers pitching the ninth inning. With his array of mostly 50- and 60-mph offerings, he allowed two hits, but no runs. Rogers' last pitch of the inning was 81 mph. It was Rogers' third pitching appearance of the season, and fourth of his career. It actually was his second scoreless outing in a row.

On the other side, Lauer was nearly flawless for the Blue Jays after the Jones home run in the first (Jones' fourth this season, a 399-footer to left). He went eight innings, striking out six. Of his 97 pitches, 71 were strikes.

The Tigers did get to Blue Jays reliever (and former Tigers prospect) Chad Green in the bottom of the ninth, on Spencer Torkelson's 22nd homer of the season, an RBI groundout by Wenceel Perez and an RBI single by Colt Keith.

But in the first meeting in which the Tigers and Blue Jays have both been in first place since 1987, it was mostly the Blue Jays who looked the part, winning for the 19th time in the last 24 games.

The Tigers, most certainly, did not. Their team ERA over the last 11 games is 6.86.

Friday night is Game 2 of the four-game series, which Hinch said earlier Thursday would be "fun." Outside of a new home run dugout celebration, there was a dearth of fun for the Tigers.

Hey, so, what else is new.