St. Louis Cardinals lose as Tigers pour it on in late innings

Cabrera makes history as Tigers top Cards

Hitting his 399th career home run, Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera tied Andres Galarraga for the most home runs by a Venezuelan-born player in big league history and led his team to a 10-4 rout of the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.

With Detroit leading 2-0 in the seventh, Cabrera took Mitch Harris deep on a 1-2 pitch for the historic dinger, pushing the Tigers’ lead to 4-0. J.D. Martinez added a homer of his own later in the inning, but the Cards’ offense tried to claw its way back into things regardless.

St. Louis (24-11) pulled within 5-2 when Jhonny Peralta launched a two-run blast, his fifth on the season, in the bottom of the seventh. Although that pulled St. Louis closer, the team’s bullpen would go on to allow five runs combined between the eighth and ninth innings, rendering the four late runs moot.

Outfielder Jason Heyward accounted for half of those runs when he launched a line-drive home run into the right-field seats in the bottom of the eighth against left-hander Tom Gorzelanny. It looked like the Cardinals might make a game of it, trailing just 6-4, but the Tigers scored four more runs in the top of the ninth to blow things wide-open.

St. Louis starter Carlos Martinez pitched relatively well, allowing just two runs on seven hits across five innings of work. The hard-throwing right-hander struck out eight and walked just two, despite picking up his second loss of the season.

Four Cardinals relievers combined to pitch four innings, allowing eight earned runs on 10 hits. Friday was a rare occurrence for a team whose bullpen has been so reliable and consistent for most of the season’s first month-plus.

Detroit (22-14) saw its starter, Shane Greene, pulled after five scoreless frames due to what the team called mild ulnar neuritis. Despite leaving early, the right-hander picked up his fourth win of the season.

What’s Next:

St. Louis and Detroit will meet again Saturday at 1:15 p.m. CT. Tyler Lyons (0-0, 4.82 ERA) will square off against Tigers’ southpaw David Price (3-1, 3.30 ERA).

Next: Looking ahead to the post-Yadi era in St. Louis