Riley Greene's two homers power Tigers past Orioles to keep pressure on in wild-card race

DETROIT — Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson, as they often are before a game, were sitting side by side in the clubhouse talking shop.

Greene was congratulating Torkelson for his "choke and poke" two-strike base hit to right field to keep the game alive in the ninth inning Saturday. And then he started rooting around for a new bat.

"This one doesn't work," he said, after going 0 for 4 Saturday. "I got a get one that works."

He picked a winner.

Greene, the 23-year-old All-Star, put the Tigers on his shoulders Sunday, belting a pair of home runs to help beat the Baltimore Orioles 4-2 and take another important series.

"That (old) bat was a little heavy," Greene said, smiling. "Had to switch it up."

With the win, the Tigers (77-73) stayed 2.5 games behind the Twins in the fight for the final wild-card spot. The Twins salvaged the finale of their series with the Reds on Sunday.

"I think we just need to keep showing up every day to play," said manager AJ Hinch, who remains resolutely opposed to his young team getting too far ahead of itself. "We're going to stay grounded where we're at and just take the next step toward the next game.

"That's been working for us for a while now and we're going to keep doing that and keep being completely boring with the hype that goes around winning a series."

Greene, wearing No. 21 in honor of Roberto Clemente Day around baseball, launched both of his homers against left-handed pitchers. They were his 22nd and 23rd on the season.

The first one came with two outs in the third inning off Baltimore’s lefty starter Cade Povich. The lefty-swinging Greene had hit four homers this season off lefty relievers, but this was his first career home run off a left-handed starter.

And it was majestic. He leaned back and crushed a 91-mph four-seam fastball. The ball left his bat at 109 mph and flew 412 feet deep into the right-field seats.

"I took a few pitches in the zone that I didn't want to take," Greene said. "I decided I needed to be aggressive and be on go and I got a good pitch to hit."

That was all the damage the Tigers could muster against Povich, who came in with a 5.91 ERA and had struggled mightily against right-handed hitters (.303/.376/.503). Ten of the 11 homers he’d given up were to right-handed hitters.

The Tigers’ righties didn’t enjoy the same success. They were 1 for 10.

They scratched a third run in the sixth against right-hander Jacob Webb. Matt Vierling walked with two outs. He stole second base after Webb used both his pickoff attempts unsuccessfully.

Vierling then scored aggressively challenging the arm of left fielder Colton Cowser on a line drive base hit by Colt Keith.

Greene struck again in the bottom of the eighth, after the Orioles had made it a one-run game, 3-2. This time it was off former Tigers closer Gregory Soto. He lined a sweeper into the right-field seats.

"He's really good, especially left-on-left," Greene said. "He's got 98 mph in his back pocket and a good slider. I was really trying to just put the bat on the ball."

Greene has faced Soto before, even going back to live batting practice sessions in Lakeland.

"It helps," he said. "But it's still not a comfortable at-bat. Because he's really good."

Hinch wasn't fixated on Greene's left-on-left prowess. He was impressed by Greene's plan going into those at-bats and his discipline to stay with it.

"He's not a finished product, and I know the All-Star season makes you feel that way," Hinch said. "He's still learning, growing and developing. He's getting more and more comfortable with his game plan and I thought he did a great job with that specifically.

"He is a tremendous player as is, but he still has room to grow and that's the exciting part about him."

Another group effort by the pitching staff, this one more traditionally structured, made those runs stand up.

Rookie right-hander Keider Montero followed up his complete-game shutout with five relatively efficient and scoreless innings, even if his stuff wasn’t quite as electric as it was against the Rockies five days ago.

The Orioles loaded their lineup with eight left-handed hitters and Montero was able to induce a lot of rollover ground-ball outs. He got eight ground-ball outs, six of them to second baseman Keith.

"They put so many left-handers against me because they know I've struggled against them," Montero said through interpreter Carlos Guillen. "But that's already happened. We've already turned the page on that. Those days are over. I've got control of the lefties because I have control of the strike zone. That was the key today.

"Dominating the strike zone and getting the hitters to get themselves out, that was key."

He was pulled after five innings and 63 pitches, Hinch said, for purely strategic reasons.

"You could see the finish line, even though it was 12 outs away," he said. "You could start counting them figuring Tyler Holton would get his share, Will Vest would get his share and Jason Foley."

There was only one hiccup in the plan — a two-run, two-out, full-count home run by Orioles' All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman on a hanging slider by Vest in the eighth. Foley got the final four outs, not allowing the top of the Baltimore order to come back up.

Meaning, no Gunnar Henderson, Cedric Mullins or Anthony Santander in a two-run game.

It was his 23rd save.

"That is a really good team," Greene said. "We just keep putting ourselves in a good position to get a possible win. That's it. Our goal is just to win every single game that we can."

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