DETROIT — The Detroit Tigers still have the best record in baseball, but they’ll enter the All-Star break with growing concerns about their fragile bullpen.
The Seattle Mariners hit five solo home runs to beat the Tigers 8-4 on Sunday afternoon at Comerica Park.
“It was an ugly finish to an ugly weekend,” said Tigers manager A.J. Hinch.
The Tigers (59-38) will head into the break on a four-game losing streak — their longest of the season — after being swept in three straight by the Mariners (51-45).
“That hasn’t happened a lot to us,” Hinch said. “We still leave for the All-Star break proud of what we’re doing. These last couple of games, we just got it handed to us.
“Needless to say, after this weekend, I think we all could use a break.”
Tommy Kahnle, until recently one of the Tigers’ most reliable relievers, entered a 4-4 game in the ninth and immediately unraveled. He gave up back-to-back solo homers to pinch-hitter Jorge Polanco and then Cole Young, walked a third batter, and was pulled without recording an out. It marked his second consecutive outing in which he exited without retiring a batter.
The Mariners scored 15 combined runs in the ninth inning over the three-game series, the most by any MLB team in at least 50 years.
Kahnle wasn’t the only Tigers reliever to falter on Sunday.
Seattle catcher Mitch Garver led off the seventh inning with a solo homer against Tyler Holton to give the Mariners a 3-2 lead.
The Tigers answered in the bottom of the inning. Javier Báez reached on an infield single against reliever Gabe Speier, advanced to second on a groundout, stole third, and scored on Gleyber Torres’ sacrifice fly to tie the game.
Then Riley Greene delivered a go-ahead, two-out solo homer to right field — his 24th of the season, tying his career high from last year in 187 fewer plate appearances. It was only his second homer this season against a left-handed pitcher.
But the lead was short-lived. With the heart of the Mariners’ order due up in the eighth, Hinch turned to his top reliever, Will Vest.
But Vest, seemingly inheriting the malaise that has affected the Tigers’ entire bullpen, allowed the first four batters to reach on three walks and an RBI double by Randy Arozarena.
With the bases loaded and no outs, the inning threatened to spiral, but Vest escaped further damage. He got Garver to fly out to shallow center (Cal Raleigh declined to tag from third), then induced a 4-6-3 double play artfully turned by Báez and Trey Sweeney.
Dillon Dingler’s two-run double in the first inning got the Tigers on the board early against Mariners starter Logan Gilbert. Both runs were unearned.
The Tigers loaded the bases again in the third, collecting three singles, but came away empty. Gleyber Torres, who had extended his MLB- and career-best on-base streak to 25 games with a single, was thrown out trying to go from first to third.
Gilbert struck out nine over 5 1/3 innings, allowing only the two unearned runs.
Tigers starter Jack Flaherty worked around his own early trouble. The Mariners loaded the bases with nobody out in the first on a single and two walks, but Flaherty struck out Arozarena and got Luke Raley to line into a double play to escape the jam.
The Mariners, as they had all weekend, did their damage with the long ball. Julio Rodríguez narrowly missed a home run to left that hooked foul, then went the other way and lined a solo shot to right.
Arozarena tied the game at 2-2 with a solo homer in the fourth.
In the fifth, J.P. Crawford doubled with two outs when a fly ball dropped between center fielder Parker Meadows and left fielder Riley Greene. Both pulled up, thinking the other would take it. That put Rodríguez back at the plate, but Flaherty battled back from a 3-1 count to strike him out and end his outing on a high note.
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