SEATTLE — Kerry Carpenter is locked in at the plate.
He is recognizing different pitch types, swinging at pitches inside the strike zone and creating damage with his powerful swing. The first two-homer game of his career powered the Detroit Tigers past the Seattle Mariners in Saturday’s 6-0 win at T-Mobile Park.
Carpenter, 25, launched his home runs off right-hander George Kirby, an All-Star this season, in the second and fifth innings. He has three homers through two games in the series and 11 homers in 49 games this season.
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The Tigers (41-50) — thanks to Carpenter’s big swings — stayed within five games of the Minnesota Twins for first place in the American League Central. The Twins, just like the Tigers, have won back-to-back games coming out of the All-Star break.
The Carpenter-led offense was backed up by a sharp pitching performance from right-hander Michael Lorenzen. The 31-year-old, a likely trade candidate as the Aug. 1 trade deadline approaches, fired 6⅔ scoreless innings with two hits, five walks and seven strikeouts.
But Carpenter, a left-handed slugger, stole the show with his power punches.
In the second inning, Carpenter put the Tigers ahead, 1-0, with a 356-foot solo home run to left field off Kirby’s first-pitch sinker at the bottom of the strike zone. He upped the Tigers’ lead to 6-0 in the fifth inning with a 431-foot three-run home run to right-center field off Kirby’s third-pitch four-seam fastball above the strike zone.
The Tigers were productive with two outs — Riley Greene drew a walk and Spencer Torkelson slapped a single — to set up Carpenter’s second home run. Torkelson picked up his 46th RBI of the season by driving in Eric Haase, who doubled with one out, for a 3-0 advantage.
Greene, hitting .300 in 56 games this season, drove in the Tigers’ second run for a 2-0 lead in the third inning with a two-out single to score Zach McKinstry, who doubled with two outs.
Kirby allowed six runs on eight hits and one walk with four strikeouts across five innings, throwing 59 of 87 pitches for strikes. The Tigers, seemingly focused on his four-seam fastball, only swung seven times (and didn’t miss) at his 18 sliders.
Carpenter, hitting .269 in 49 games, finished 2-for-4 with four RBIs and one strikeout.
At home in Seattle
Lorenzen, the Tigers’ All-Star representative in Tuesday’s game in Seattle, opposed Kirby and extended his scoreless innings streak to a career-high 14⅔ innings. He walked the final two batters he faced, but right-handed reliever Beau Brieske entered and escaped the jam by striking out Mike Ford with fastballs and changeups.
The Mariners didn’t get a hit off Lorenzen until Jarred Kelenic’s ground-ball single with one out in the fifth inning. Lorenzen escaped a pair of walks in the first and fourth innings with inning-ending double plays, both from Ty France.
Both times, France hit second-pitch sinkers into the ground.
Lorenzen also worked around a two-out walk to Cal Raleigh in the fifth inning, which occurred after Kelenic’s single. Ford stranded Kelenic and Raleigh by popping out on a first-pitch slider.
Before Ford’s plate appearance, pitching coach Chris Fetter visited Lorenzen on the mound.
Lorenzen threw 31 four-seam fastballs (32%), 23 sliders (24%), 18 changeups (19%), 15 sweepers (15%) and 10 sinkers (10%). He recorded 11 whiffs with two fastballs, three sliders, three changeups and three sweepers.
The Mariners were limited to an 82.5 mph exit velocity on 13 balls in play.
Go, go, Beau
Making his season debut, Brieske completed 1⅓ innings out of the bullpen with three strikeouts. He struck out Ford in the seventh, then Julio Rodríguez and France in the eighth.
He worked around a leadoff double from Kolten Wong in the eighth.
Brieske, who landed on the injured list before Opening Day with an ulnar nerve entrapment, featured seven four-seam fastballs, five sinkers, four changeups and two sliders. His fastball averaged 96.6 mph, up from 94.3 mph last season, and he generated five whiffs.
If Brieske throws strikes, he can dominate as a reliever in the big leagues.
Right-handed reliever Brendan White pitched a scoreless bottom of the ninth inning, including a pair of strikeouts, to end the game.
Contact Evan Petzold at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kerry Carpenter hammers Detroit Tigers to 6-0 W over Seattle Mariners