ST. PETERSBURG -- Maybe Tarik Skubal was onto something Monday afternoon when he suggested a new month could be just what the Tigers need to salvage their season.
“A fresh month always helps just mentally, right? Just kind of clear anything that's happened over the last 30 days of baseball,” Skubal said Monday afternoon. “The fresh month can kind of give you a fresh perspective.”
When the season feels like it could be on the line on June 1, amid Skubal trade speculation and the Tigers’ worst May in 30 years, a clean slate is good to have. And yet, as the Tigers hung on for dear life in the ninth inning Monday night, it took everything to make sure this didn’t become a continuation of their month-long misery.
“We don’t have to let May define us,” Kerry Carpenter said. “Turn the page. We know we’re better than what we played in May.”
Or as Riley Greene simply put it, “It’s a new month.”
Twelve batters into Monday’s 10-9 win over the Rays, the Tigers had matched their run total from their entire three-game series last weekend against the White Sox.
Two pitches later, they had their first back-to-back-back home runs in six years.
Two innings later, Dillon Dingler – who started the run of consecutive homers – had the first two-dinger game of his career.
Then Hao-Yu Lee followed a superb glove flip to shortstop Kevin McGonigle for an inning-ending double play in the fifth with a home run to lead off the next inning.
“It’s fun to be part of a lineup that puts up 10 runs,” Carpenter said. “That was a blast.”
By the eighth inning, Will Vest was five batters into what became a 40-pitch, five-out save, working with the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position. And as Vest fanned Victor Mesa Jr. to finally end the Tigers’ four-game losing streak, he had every reason to scream like he had just saved a postseason victory.
“Every run tonight was big,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “It felt like it was never going to be enough.”
Sure, it’s only one game. But mentally, it was massive. The more the Rays rallied, the more the Tigers needed this one.
Not bad for a team that entered Monday tied for the worst record with the Majors, and Detroit’s worst start through 60 games since 2003.
“Focus on each game. Take it day by day,” Skubal said when asked how they can turn it around. “We did it in '24, and that gives me a little bit of calm when the ship can be rocking a little bit right now. I think that gives everyone in here a sense of calm.
“We've been counted out before, and that's fine. Rightfully so, we were counted out. And rightfully so, we're counted out right now too. It's a back-against-the-wall type thing. Let's see who we really are and see how we fight.”
The fight showed early. Greene’s two-run double in the first inning not only marked Detroit’s first multi-run hit since Friday, it marked its first multi-run game since then.
The Tigers have had plenty of strong starts that fizzled when they failed to add on. But they feasted on former AL Central foe Griffin Jax, who gave up as many home runs in a three-batter span of the third inning as he had given up in his previous 23 career innings against the Tigers.
There were three different pitch types hit to three different parts of the park. Dingler fouled off three different pitches before crushing a sweeper a Statcast-projected 428 feet to left-center. Two pitches later, Carpenter got a 94.8 mile-per-hour fastball and sent it out to right-center. Two pitches after that, Greene connected with a cutter and sent it 428 feet to straightaway center.
Dingler sent a Trevor Martin cutter deep to right-center in the fifth. He came within feet of a third home run in the eighth, sending a Cole Sulser fastball 412 feet to the depths of left-center for an RBI double.
Dingler, Carpenter and Greene all finished a triple shy of a cycle.
“Just trying to get to that next guy,” Greene said. “That’s who we were when we were going good. Pass the baton. Trust the guy behind you.”
The urgency of the Tigers starting the month with a win proved evident in Hinch’s use of the bullpen. Ty Madden entered the fourth inning with a 6-0 lead but left after four consecutive baserunners, including a two-run homer from Junior Caminero. Three relievers pitched in the sixth, when former Tiger Ryan Vilade’s three-run homer off Brenan Hanifee powered Tampa Bay back into the game.
It culminated in Vest’s marathon save.
“You kind of sense this team in this ballpark, the way they play, they’re never out of it,” Hinch said. “And so, when they started to close gaps, I’m not going to be defensive.”
It was a good start to a new month. It was also maybe a win to save a season.