Tarik Skubal pitched six dominant innings and Kerry Carpenter highlighted his multi-hit game with a home run, leading the Detroit Tigers to a 4-1 win over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday afternoon.
Skubal (3-2) struck out 10, twice fanning the side, while allowing just one run on four hits en route to the win.
Carpenter (2-for-3, two RBI) and Kevin McGonigle (2-for-5, RBI, run) led the offense for Detroit, which broke a nine-game road losing streak.
Tyler Holton and Kenley Jansen teamed up in relief as Boston was limited to five hits. Jansen notched his fifth save.
Brayan Bello (1-2) took the loss, allowing four runs on five hits and three walks in four innings. He fanned four, while throwing 84 pitches.
The Tigers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning while forcing Bello to throw 35 pitches. After McGonigle lined a leadoff single to right, another base knock by Colt Keith and a walk to Riley Greene loaded the bases.
Bello fanned Spencer Torkelson, but another free pass to Carpenter forced home Detroit’s opening run.
Bello retired the next eight men he faced, including a strikeout to begin the fourth, before the visitors marked the scoreboard again on Carpenter’s towering homer into the right-center field bullpen. After two more baserunners continued the line, Jake Rogers’ sacrifice fly and another McGonigle single extended the Detroit lead.
The four runs proved to be enough support for Skubal, who retired the Red Sox in order the first time through the lineup and allowed just one baserunner before Boston got on the board in the fifth.
In the hosts’ run-scoring inning, a Wilyer Abreu single and Ceddanne Rafaela double set the table in the inning, but Connor Wong’s double play ball plating a run was all of the offense Skubal would allow.
Back-to-back hits by Roman Anthony and Andruw Monestario to begin the sixth gave Boston an opportunity to break into its deficit further, but Skubal escaped trouble with two strikeouts of the next three batters.
Skubal fanned the side in the second and fourth innings. Boston’s Willson Contreras and Trevor Story each struck out three times in the game.
