Jason Beck@beckjasonShare
Jun 28, 2025
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Riley Greene’s solo home run (18)
DETROIT — The Tigers couldn’t figure out Bailey Ober in four meetings last season. On Saturday, he became the poster child for how things have flipped between Detroit and Minnesota in the American League Central. Kerry Carpenter, Gleyber Torres, Riley Greene and Zach McKinstry all homered off the Twins’ towering right-hander, supporting Casey Mize through his 6 2/3 quality innings for a 10-5 win to even their three-game series at Comerica Park heading into a Sunday night showdown with Tarik Skubal.
While Mize beat the Twins for just the second time in nine career meetings, the Tigers beat Ober for the first time since 2023. Ober went 3-0 in four starts against Detroit last season, holding Detroit to two earned runs on 13 hits in 26 innings, with a 28-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Casey Mize strikes out Carlos Correa
For an inning, Ober seemed to pick up where he’d left off last season, striking out Torres and Greene after Colt Keith’s single to lead off the first. Spencer Torkelson’s double off the fence in left-center led off the second inning and set up a Matt Vierling sacrifice fly in his return from the injured list.
It was a harbinger of swings to come. Detroit scored in five consecutive innings off Ober, who gave up twice as many home runs (four) as he had allowed in 37 career innings at Comerica Park entering Saturday (two).
Matt Vierling’s sac fly opens the scoring
Byron Buxton’s two-run home run, his second homer in as many games, gave Minnesota a 2-1 lead in the third inning. Carpenter, who caught a potential Trevor Larnach home run at the left-field fence in the second inning, crushed a 3-2 hanging slider from Ober for a game-tying homer in the bottom of the third. Torres followed Keith’s go-ahead sacrifice fly by ambushing Ober’s first-pitch fastball for a two-run homer in the fourth. Greene sat on a sweeper at the bottom of the zone and sent it 415 feet to right field for his 18th home run of the season to lead off the fifth. McKinstry turned on an Ober changeup in nearly the same spot and sent it down the right-field line for his fifth home run of the season to lead off the sixth.
Zach McKinstry’s solo home run (5)
Ober became the first pitcher to allow four home runs to the Tigers in a game at Comerica Park since Alex Avila, Miguel Cabrera, J.D. Martinez and Nick Castellenos went deep off Texas’ A.J. Griffin on May 20, 2017. McKinstry added a seventh-inning sacrifice fly off former Tiger Joey Wentz.
Mize (8-2) avenged an April 15 loss at Target Field and improved to 5-0 with a 2.00 ERA at home this season, retiring 13 of his final 15 batters after Buxton’s homer.Did you like this story?
