Tigers ride home-run barrage to edge Rays in opener

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Jun 1, 2026

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — These games just keep getting harder and harder to fathom.

The Tigers slugged five home runs Monday night. They scored more runs than they had since April 16. They had leads of 6-0, 8-2 and 10-5.

And they had to hold on for dear life. Will Vest, after some heroic work to get out of the eighth inning with a lead, closed out the ninth inning and the Tigers beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 10-9, in the first of three games at Tropicana Field.

The win snapped a four-game losing.

The Tigers, almost literally, walked the Rays back into the game. Three of the eight walks issued came in a bizarre eighth inning and all three scored.

Right-handed reliever Beau Brieske started the inning with a five-run lead and walked three of the four batters he faced. Vest entered at that point and somehow, despite some shoddy fielding, managed to get out of the inning with a one-run lead.

With the bases loaded, Vest got Nick Fortes to hit a bouncing ball down the third base line. The ball had an exit velocity of 82.9 mph, but third baseman Colt Keith couldn't field it cleanly and it went for a two-run double.

Ben Williamson followed with a harder-hit grounder (96.8 mph) that kicked off first baseman Spencer Torkelson's glove, scoring another run.

Yandy Diaz followed, hitting a ball up the middle that should've been an inning-ending double-play. Instead, second baseman Hao-Yu Lee rushed it, bobbled it and everybody was safe.

Vest, though, kept fighting. He got Jonathan Aranda on a tapper in front of the plate and Richie Palacios to fly out to center.

Before that, the Tigers looked like a different team. At least on the offensive side of things.

They entered the night with the fourth fewest home runs in the American League. They scored five runs total in a three-game sweep against the White Sox in Chicago. They came in on the heels of their worst-hitting month since 2003.

They also came in with worst record in the American League and the worst road record in baseball.

Welcome to June.

Riley Greene’s two-run double in the first inning kickstarted things against right-hander Griffin Jax. But the real fireworks came in the third.

And it started with a beyond-his-years walk by rookie Kevin McGonigle. Jax, who carries seven pitches in his toolkit, got ahead 1-2. But McGonigle kept grinding. He took two 90-mph change-ups, fouled off a 95-mph sinker, fouled off a sweeper and then didn’t even flinch at another change-up out of the strike zone.

The eight-pitch walk seemed to unnerve Jax. The next three hitters took him out of the yard.

Dillon Dingler hit a sweeper 428 feet over the wall in left-center. Kerry Carpenter, in his second game back off the injured list, hit a fastball 391 feet over the wall in right-center. And Greene blasted a cutter 428 feet to right-center.

It was the first time the Tigers have hit three consecutive homers since August of 2020. On that day against the Pirates, Miguel Cabrera, C.J. Cron and Jeimer Candelario homered off Derek Holland.

The 2026 Tigers hadn’t hit multiple homers in a game since May 14.

Dingler homered again leading off the fifth inning, his 13th. It was the first multiple-homer game of his career. He delivered a vital tack-on run with a two-out double in the eighth inning, as well — a four-hit, four-RBI night.

Dingler, Carpenter and Greene each finished a triple shy of a cycle.

Lee homered to lead off the sixth. He hit an opposite-field shot to right on a 0-2 pitch from reliever Trevor Martin.

The Tigers led 8-2 in the sixth inning, though things got tight quickly.

Right-hander Brenan Hanifee walked the first two hitters and then gave up a 438-foot, three-run homer to former Tiger Ryan Vilade.

Walks, continued to be a problem for the Tigers’ pitchers.

Starter Ty Madden cruised through three innings on just 28 pitches (20 strikes). But he didn’t get out of the fourth. He walked Palacios ahead of Junior Caminero, who slugged his 14th homer.

Madden gave up a single and a walk, plus a wild pitch, before departing.

Lefty Tyler Holton cleaned up that mess and pitched a scoreless fifth.

But Hanifee couldn’t find the strike zone and after the Vilade homer, he gave way to lefty Drew Sommers, who got two outs but also walked left-handed hitting Cedric Mullins.

With Mullins on second and two outs, and with the ever-dangerous Diaz on deck, Kyle Finnegan fell behind pinch-hitter Williamson, but got him to ground out to end the inning.

Finnegan got a double-play grounder to end a scoreless seventh inning.

Back-to-back doubles by Dingler and Carpenter in the eighth briefly eased some of the stress.