Cabrera drives in 2 to tie Williams, Tigers beat Royals 7-5
Jul 12, 2022, 8:43 AM | Updated: 11:03 pm
Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera (24) celebrates scoring against the Kansas City Royals with teammate Willi Castro (9) during the seventh inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, July 12, 2022, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann)
(AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Miguel Cabrera drove in the tying and go-ahead runs, matching Ted Williams for 14th place on the career RBI list, and the Detroit Tigers rallied past the Kansas City Royals 7-5 on Tuesday night to snap a four-game skid.
Cabrera’s sacrifice fly in the fifth inning made it 3-3, and he had an RBI grounder for the Tigers’ first run in a four-run seventh. He equaled Williams with 1,838 RBIs.
“If we want anybody up to bat with a runner in scoring position, it’s Miggy,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said.
Later in the seventh, Cabrera stole third and scored on a wild throw by catcher MJ Melendez. It was just his second stolen base in the past seven seasons, and his first since Sept. 11, 2020, also a steal of third.
“It’s like Rickey Henderson says, ‘When you go, you gotta go,'” Cabrera said. “You don’t think. You just go. It was an opportunity to make something happen. Thank God I was safe. I still got it. Vroom, vroom, let’s go!”
“He saw something,” Hinch said. “I don’t think anybody anticipated Miggy going, including me. But it did kind of ignite something in the dugout and obviously we put some pressure on them and they made some mistakes. We opened up a lead that we needed there at the end.”
The Royals committed three errors in the seventh behind Jose Cuas (2-1), who allowed four runs, only one of them earned. Kansas City had four errors overall — two by shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. — as its three-game winning streak ended.
“A couple of plays looked ugly there,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “That inning got away from our defense and that hasn’t happened very often this season.”
Beau Brieske (3-6) settled in after some early trouble, allowing one hit to his last 16 batters. He worked six innings, allowing three runs on five hits and striking out four.
“The only way to salvage the game is to throw four or five zeros and keep your team in the game,” Brieske said. “It’s frustrating to give up runs early but it’s nice to settle in.”
Gregory Soto worked the ninth for his 18th save.
Melendez ripped Brieske’s first pitch of the game to left-center for a triple, then scored on Andrew Benintendi’s single. Benintendi, named to his first All-Star team this week, had two hits and drove in two runs.
“Just trying to start off the game, get on base and try to score,” Melendez said. “I know it puts a lot of pressure on. It’s part of trying to play hard, run hard.”
Melendez’s leadoff triple was the third by a catcher in major league history and the first since Craig Biggio did it on Sept. 4, 1991, against the Mets.
Isbel had an RBI double in the second for Kansas City, the first of his three hits, and Emmanuel Rivera drove him in with a double to make it 3-2.
TRAINER’S ROOM
RHP Matt Manning (60-day injured list, right shoulder inflammation) threw two innings for Class A Lakeland.
TRANSACTIONS
Tigers: Rookie INF/OF Kody Clemens was optioned to Triple-A Toledo and OF Akil Baddoo was recalled.
UP NEXT
Detroit LHP Tarik Skubal (6-7, 3.99 ERA) opposes Kansas City RHP Brady Singer (3-3, 4.25) as the Tigers seek a split of the four-game series.
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