CLEVELAND -- Maybe the sight of a stumbling hot dog mascot in front of the Tigers’ dugout, somehow managing to fall under the finish line in Progressive Field’s hot-dog derby, was a bad omen for Matthew Boyd after he took the mound with a three-run lead over the Indians in the fifth inning Friday night.

The All-Star candidate had recovered from a hanging slider and two-run homer in the first inning to retire eight in a row into the fourth, and he looked to be cruising in his second trip through the Cleveland order after the Tigers had roughed up Trevor Bauer. Then Tyler Naquin hit Boyd’s first pitch of the fifth inning out of the park, just as Jordan Luplow did with Boyd’s second pitch of the sixth to bring the Indians within a run.

Before long, two line-drive singles sandwiched around a sacrifice bunt had turned a sizable Tigers lead to dust for a second consecutive game, and turned the pitching duel between Boyd and Bauer into a no-decision in which each starter gave up five runs, and together they had given up a total of five home runs. It also turned the game into a battle of the bullpens, which rarely works out in Detroit’s favor.

“I made a few mistakes and instead of singles or popups or taking it, they hit the mistakes out tonight, and that's the way it works out,” Boyd said after the Tigers’ 7-6 loss to the Indians. “Unfortunately, I let them back in the game when our offense did a great job against a really good pitcher to get the lead. That's on me.”

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Boyd and Bauer have plenty in common. They faced each other as Pac-12 foes at Oregon State and UCLA, respectively. Both have trained at Driveline Baseball’s development program and both have developed into staff aces in recent years, though both are grinding through up-and-down seasons.

“The way we developed a few pitches, we worked a lot the same way,” Boyd said. “We did a lot of similar things. His repertoire's a little different than mine obviously, but we did similar things.”

With the Tigers and Indians well behind the Twins in the American League Central, both are facing a potential bevy of trade rumors over the next six weeks leading up the July 31 Trade Deadline. The Tigers could be looking to fortify their rebuild, while the Indians are potentially embarking on one. For what it’s worth, Friday’s matchup did not attract a bevy of scouts.

Boyd, for his part, said Wednesday he tunes out the trade talk as he does with most things out of his control. He has been openly excited about the influx of pitching prospects on the way, and his rise the last couple years from inconsistent young lefty looking to hang onto a rotation spot into a front-line starter who could help a contending team makes him a good mentor for Detroit’s young arms.

Much of Boyd’s rise coincides with the emergence of his slider as a putaway pitch, having honed it with a methodical focus on spin rate and release. He had given up only one home run off the pitch this season until hanging one to Carlos Santana out of his slide step with a runner on in the first inning. By contrast, Boyd found success after that by inducing Cleveland hitters to chase his elevated fastball, which drew eight swings and misses and 13 called strikes.

“That's my strength, pitching in to my glove side and elevating when I want to and then spinning the ball down,” said Boyd, who threw nearly twice as many fastballs as sliders in Friday’s game. “That's what we were doing today and it worked really well.”

With a three-run lead, Boyd threw a first-pitch fastball in the zone to Naquin expecting him to take the pitch. Instead, Naquin centered it and sent the ball 428 feet to right-center. His home run to Luplow was a hanging changeup, saddling Boyd with just his second three-homer game since 2015.

“[Pitching coach Rick Anderson] kept telling him, ‘You’re getting way over [the] top of the ball, and it’s not doing anything. You have to stay on the side of the ball,’” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “And he was trying. But this team right here has good hitters, and if you leave the ball over the plate, they hit it.”

The five earned runs off Boyd were a season high, and nullified the damage Detroit inflicted on Bauer five days after he tossed a four-hit complete-game shutout at Comerica Park.

The 10 hits Bauer allowed tied his season high, and few of them were soft; Detroit averaged a 90.8-mph exit velocity off Bauer, compared with 79.6 mph on Sunday.

In that sense, Boyd and Bauer shared similar sentiments.

“They made some adjustments,” Bauer said of Tigers hitters. “Got to credit them for that. Pitches that were swung and missed or weakly contacted last time, they were able to get to this time. I think I threw the ball pretty well overall, actually. I obviously made a couple mistakes over the plate and it got hit out. That’s gonna happen. They did a good job not missing those and then spoiling tough ones, too.”

Cleveland pulled in front in the eighth with two runs off last year’s All-Star, Joe Jiménez. Rookie Christin Stewart homered for one of the runs off Bauer, and singled in another off Cleveland closer Brad Hand to bring the Tigers within a run. Stewart represented the potential tying tally when Naquin made a diving catch on a Nicholas Castellanos drive to start a rally-stopping double play.

“Ninth inning, your closer's on the mound, we tag him twice, we're down by one, you smash a ball in the gap that you think has a chance to tie the game, and then it turns into a double play,” Castellanos said. “I guess you can say that took the wind out of our tires.”

Boyd didn’t quite put it that way, but he felt the air taken out.