Greene's home run powered the Tigers' early surge, while Marlins errors plagued their efforts in a decisive 6-1 defeat.
The Detroit Tigers pounced on Janson Junk early and defeated the Miami Marlins 6-1 on Saturday.
Junk lasted five innings, allowing five runs (4 earned) on five hits with two walks and four strikeouts. During his postgame press conference, Marlins manager Clayton McCullough called Junk’s outing “a tale of two starts.”
“He had a tougher time landing some secondary pitches for strikes,” McCullough said. “As the outing flipped the last few innings, I thought he finished up strong.”
The Tigers took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a double by Colt Keith and a single by Riley Greene.
Greene struck again in the third inning with a three-run home run after Kevin McGonigle walked and Dillon Dingler reached on catcher's interference. Greene went 2-for-3 to lead the Tigers.
The Marlins also committed two errors, totaling 15 errors in 15 games so far this season.
“We haven’t been as clean as everyone in there knows what we have to do to put ourselves in position to win games,” McCullough said. “It’s not just the outs you don’t get, it’s extra pitches, it just puts extra stress on our staff and getting more guys on base.”
The Marlins got on the board in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly by Connor Norby. Liam Hicks led off the inning with a single and Otto Lopez doubled to advance him to third base to set up the score.
Lopez led the Marlins at the plate, going 2-for-4 with two doubles. The shortstop is batting .327 with a .886 OPS.
The bullpen came in for the final three innings of work. John King and Michael Peterson each went hitless in the sixth and seventh innings. The only run they gave up was an RBI single by Spencer Torkelson in the eighth inning of Anthony Bender.
Casey Mize earned the win with one earned run allowed on six hits and five strikeouts in 5.2 innings pitched. Drew Anderson earned a 3.1-inning save for the Tigers with two strikeouts, two walks, and no hits allowed.
Sunday will be a battle of the aces. Sandy Alcantara (2-0, 0.74 ERA) will be tasked with salvaging the series for the Marlins while two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal (1-2, 2.55 ERA) will look to secure the sweep.
“We need to try to come out of here and salvage one in this series,” McCullough said. “We just haven’t gotten it done in the first couple of days but we’ll just turn the page and get ready for another one tomorrow.”
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