DETROIT -- The boos echoed around Comerica Park, loudly and lustily, every time Alex Bregman came to bat against the team he spurned as a free agent to sign with the Red Sox three months ago after a courtship that lasted nearly as long. But ultimately, the Tigers chose to follow the words of poet George Herbert: Living well is the best revenge.
Herbert said nothing about batting around in nine-run innings or flipping bats on home runs, having been born in the 16th century, but for Monday, they fit the argument. As Riley Greene sped around the bases in the bottom of the third inning, his two-run single through the right side having bounced past Red Sox right fielder Wilyer Abreu and rolled to the wall, the home crowd -- already enlivened by Gleyber Torres’ two-run homer in the first inning -- and dugout were collectively going wild.
“I’m going to be honest: I didn’t hear anything,” Greene said after the Tigers’ 14-2 win. “Me and [first-base coach Anthony Iapoce] were talking about it; he was telling me to watch the throw and see if [Abreu] was going to overthrow the cut, and it got by him, so all I was thinking was, 'Get on your horse.' I picked up [third-base coach] Joey [Cora] and saw that he was waving, so I just went.”
He got it. Greene’s Little League home run took 15.7 seconds, the fastest time from home plate to home plate in the Majors this season according to Statcast.
“We should’ve had some oxygen,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “If we were in Colorado, he would’ve been in deep trouble. I couldn’t see the ball getting all the way to the wall or how far it was getting away from [Abreu], but Joey was waving him from first base to second base, so there was no way he wasn’t going to make the entire trip. It was a matter of whether he was going to be safe.”
Once Greene slid in ahead of the throw home, Detroit had turned a two-run game into a six-run lead. By the time the inning was over, the Tigers had sent 14 batters to the plate, scored nine, chased beleaguered Red Sox starter Tanner Houck and put the game into double digits. Trey Sweeney crushed a Houck sweeper a Statcast-projected 396 feet to right for his third homer and 10th RBI in May. Torres finished Houck with an RBI single, then Justyn-Henry Malloy greeted Sean Newcomb with one of his own.
Not even Bregman could claw back this one.
Not since Sept. 8, 2008, had the Tigers scored 11 runs in the first three innings. To put that in perspective, Gary Sheffield hit a solo homer in the first inning that night and a grand slam in the third, both off then-A’s starter Gio González.
That Tigers team was in the closing stages of a sub-.500 season after two years of playoff contention. Monday was this Tigers team’s latest statement that its fast start is for real. It came against a Red Sox team that entered the season with lofty expectations but has struggled around .500, despite signing Bregman in February to a three-year, $120 million deal. Bregman was booed all three times he stepped into the box to bat, each time seemingly a tad louder than the previous, before being lifted in the fifth.
The Tigers couldn’t have cared less about the reaction.
“No. He made his decision,” Greene said succinctly when asked about the boos.
The third-inning outburst rewarded Tigers starter Jackson Jobe for his escape in the top of the inning, having loaded the bases with back-to-back one-out walks to Rafael Devers and Bregman. Rookie sensation Kristian Campbell chased a 97 mph high fastball and scorched a sinking liner to the opposite field, but right fielder Kerry Carpenter was positioned just close enough to reach across his body for the catch and throw home before Jarren Duran could get back to third to tag up.
“I think everything worked in our favor in that,” Hinch said.
Abreu’s groundout on Jobe’s next pitch ended the threat. By the time Jobe took the mound for the fourth, he had a double-digit lead.
“Definitely makes it easier on me,” said Jobe, whose search for more swings and misses was rewarded with career highs of seven strikeouts and 15 whiffs. He left after his fifth walk, a two-out pass in the sixth, but by then, the Tigers were filling innings.