The Detroit Tigers showed off their power during their home opener on Friday.
They’ll try to build off that display of strength in the second contest of a three-game series against the Chicago White Sox on Saturday afternoon.
Kerry Carpenter hit a pair of solo home runs in Detroit’s 7-4 win. Riley Greene had a single, double and homer as the Tigers banged out six extra-base hits in the first six innings.
That pleased the vast majority of the 44,735 paying customers.
“Our fans create a national holiday, or at least a Michigan holiday, on a day like today,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said.
Carpenter became the first Tigers player since 2013 to hit two home runs in the home opener. Prince Fielder was the last Detroit player to achieve that feat.
Right-hander Reese Olson (0-1, 7.71 ERA) will make his second start of the season for Detroit on Saturday. Olson gave up four runs and four hits in 4 2/3 innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers last Saturday and took the loss in a 7-3 defeat.
Olson surrendered a solo homer to Freddie Freeman in the first inning and allowed a single run in the second and two runs in the fifth. He’ll go from matching up against the defending champions with a loaded lineup to facing the team with the league’s worst record last season.
“One through nine, those are pretty tough at-bats all the way through,” Olson said of the Dodgers. “You can’t make too many mistakes or they’re going to punish you, like Freddie did in the first.”
He threw 93 pitches but only 57 for strikes.
“It was hard the way it ended, but I thought Reese did a lot of really good things,” Hinch said. “All in all, he stayed in and battled. They worked him and he had to throw a lot of pitches.”
Olson has made four career starts against the White Sox, posting a 2-2 record and a 2.16 ERA.
Right-hander Davis Martin (0-0, 0.00) will start for Chicago. Martin had a strong first outing this season, as he allowed only two unearned runs and four hits in six innings in his team’s 3-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday.
Martin has made four appearances against the Tigers, including three starts, going 1-1 with a 2.01 ERA.
The White Sox didn’t get much going offensively on Friday until the ninth inning, when they scored three runs. That forced Hinch to use Will Vest to close the game.
“We weren’t able to get anything going offensively off of (Detroit starter Jack) Flaherty, but I was really happy with the way the group continued to battle there,” Chicago manager Will Venable said. “We got a leverage arm in the game, and that can pay off later in the series. So these guys kept grinding. Really happy with the way we finished the game.”
Brooks Baldwin drove in two of Chicago’s runs, including an RBI double. The infielder has five RBIs in the last three games.
Chicago has lost five of its last six games. The game on Friday was the team’s road opener. The White Sox will play three games in Cleveland following this three-game weekend series.
–Field Level Media
