Fulmer, Martinez lead Tigers over the Blue Jays
Michael Fulmer is helping the Detroit Tigers enjoy baseball again.
One night after the Tigers threw 220 pitches in an ugly loss, Fulmer only needed 101 in his eight innings of Saturday night’s 11-1 rout of the Toronto Blue Jays.
“It’s fun to play a game where you are scoring runs on offence and your pitcher is getting quick outs,” third baseman Nicholas Castellanos said. “That’s how you want to play every day.”
Fulmer and Alex Wilson finished the game throwing 115 pitches, a far cry from Friday’s 7-2 loss that saw the bullpen need 106 pitches to get 11 outs.
“It has a huge impact on the entire team when you aren’t asking them to stand around on defence for 20 minutes every half-inning,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said.
“The game goes stagnant in a hurry when you do that.”
Castellanos, Miguel Cabrera and J.D. Martinez homered for the Tigers. Martinez, the focus of numerous trade rumours, drove in five runs.
Fulmer (10-6) won his fourth straight start, giving up one run and two hits while walking one and striking out three.
“My walk came around to score, so that wasn’t good, but this was obviously a very good game,” said Fulmer, who made his first All-Star appearance earlier in the week. “I needed a game like this, where I avoided barrels and got a lot of weak contact.”
Kendrys Morales had a clean single in the second inning, but the Blue Jays didn’t get another hit until Troy Tulowitzki’s infield single in the eighth.
Francisco Liriano (5-5) took the loss, allowing five runs, three hits and four walks in two-plus innings. He struck out two.