Dillon Dingler, James Outman deliver in Tigers' comeback win

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Jul 23, 2026

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — Dillon Dingler, as he has all season, delivered another clutch, two-out RBI.

This one sent the Tigers to a 4-3 win over the Kansas City Royals in front of 35,548 at Comerica Park Thursday night.

With Hao-Yu Lee at second base, Dingler lined a Steven Cruz pitch into the left-field corner to break the tie. It was his 35th two-out RBI, and his team-high 66th, this season.

With Kenley Jansen unavailable after pitching in three of the last four games, with Tyler Holton already collecting five outs in the game, and with the Royals having two lefties coming up, lefty Drew Sommers started the ninth. But after striking out Carter Jensen, he walked Lane Thomas and gave up a single to Vinnie Pasquantino.

Manager AJ Hinch summoned Kyle Finnegan. He promptly induced a 4-6-3 double play from Salvador Perez to end the game.

The Tigers (49-54) are now 12-5 in July and 27-16 since June 1.

They were down 2-0 after six innings. But like on Wednesday, they had a clutch swing looming.

After Lee delivered a clutch three-run home run to beat the Cubs in the finale in Chicago, it was light-hitting James Outman’s turn to play unlikely hero Thursday.

Against former Tiger John Schreiber, Outman, who came in hitting .155, hit a two-out, three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh that gave the Tigers a short-lived 3-2 lead.

Outman drove a center-cut, 2-2 fastball into the tiny shrubs just over the wall in right field for his fourth homer since joining the Tigers.

That lead lasted three batters. Against reliever Drew Anderson, Michael Massey singled and was replaced by pinch-runner Tyler Tolbert, who then stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Josh Rojas.

Schreiber was the second former Tiger in the game for the Royals.

It wasn’t too awfully long ago (2017) that Randy Dobnak was pitching in an independent league in Utica. He reached the big leagues in 2019 and beat the Tigers at Comerica Park in his fifth start that season.

Last year, he made eight starts for the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens but never earned a call-up from the Tigers, who rolled the dice in early September with veterans Chris Paddack and Charlie Morton.

Dobnak showed them what they might’ve been missing Thursday night.

Short-arming a clever mix of change-ups, sinkers and sweepers, he stifled the Tigers’ hitters for five innings. They managed just four hits and the only time they threatened was in the first. With runners at the corners and two outs, Dobnak got Dingler to rollover to shortstop.

For Tigers starter Troy Melton, it was a struggle from the start.

He needed 28 pitches to get through the first inning, walking two batters around a single by Pasquantino. But with the bases loaded and one out, he struck out Massey and Isaac Collins to end the threat.

His third strike to Collins bounced away from Dingler. Dingler pounced on it and Melton alertly covered the plate, just barely getting his foot on the plate before Jensen slid home.

Melton ended up walking four hitters and stranded runners in scoring position in the second and fifth innings.

It caught up with him in the sixth. He gave up a single to Massey then left a slider over the middle of the plate to Collins, who knocked it into the right-field seats.