CINCINNATI -- Spencer Torkelson began the week as a sub-.200 hitter without a home run for the season but with belief that the results would eventually match the metrics. He ended the week in the Tigers’ record books.
For the fifth consecutive game, Torkelson homered, this time a drive to left-center off a right-handed reliever brought in specifically to keep him from trotting around the bases. It provided an insurance run in the Tigers’ 8-3 win, but it powered Torkelson into elite company in Tigers history.
Torkelson’s five-game home run streak ties the franchise record, joining him with Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, Rudy York, Vic Wertz, Willie Horton and Marcus Thames. It also ties White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami for the longest streak in the Majors this season.
Torkelson will head to Atlanta on Tuesday for the start of a three-game series against the Braves with a chance to not only set a new Tigers record, but become the first MLB player with a six-game homer streak since Rafael Devers in 2024.
Torkelson has heated up this week by destroying fastballs over the plate. He had been hitting them hard for much of the season but with little to show for it until he sent a heater from Milwaukee’s Chad Patrick over the left-field fence at Comerica Park on Wednesday. The homer that finally put Torkelson on the board for 2026 set him loose for what has become a daily ritual.
Torkelson hit his first career walkoff homer the next day off a 99.2 mph fastball from Abner Uribe. He crushed a rising fastball from previously scoreless Reds reliever Tony Santillan and sent it into Great American Ball Park’s left-field upper deck Friday night, igniting a go-ahead rally in the eighth inning. He went oppo with Brady Singer’s hanging sinker on Saturday for a solo homer to right-center, becoming the first Tiger to homer in four consecutive games since Ian Kinsler in 2016.
From that point, the Reds seemed determined to limit Torkelson’s fastball opportunities, feeding him a steady diet of breaking pitches and offspeed. He still crushed a Brock Burke changeup over center fielder TJ Friedl’s head for a double in Sunday’s sixth inning.
No surprise, then, that Reds manager Terry Francona replaced lefty reliever Sam Moll with right-hander Pierce Johnson as Torkelson stepped to the plate in the seventh inning following Hao-Yu Lee’s go-ahead pinch-hit homer. Johnson throws curveballs for 72 percent of his pitches, but he offered Torkelson two fastballs over the plate, with a curveball in the dirt in between. Torkelson fouled off the first, but after laying off the curveball, he pummeled the 1-1 heater, sending it a Statcast-estimated 421-foot drive to left-center.
Torkelson hadn’t homered in more than two consecutive games in his pro career until this stretch. He homered in four straight games as a sophomore at Arizona State.