The Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals were actually tied 2-2 after six innings.
Boyd — who revamped his mechanics before an Aug. 28 start against the White Sox — threw five innings of sharp baseball. He kept the Royals off-balance and attacked the zone with his more streamlined delivery. But he was unable to keep them off the board when he needed to most.
Boyd allowed four runs on seven hits. He struck out four and walked two.
In the seventh, righty Warwick Saupold relieved Boyd and allowed three consecutive hits. Jairo Labourt finally put out the fire before Joe Jimenez’s struggles continued in the eighth.
The Royals opened the seventh with five consecutive hits -- four of them doubles -- to score four runs and break open a tie game. They padded their lead in in the next inning, scoring seven runs, five of which were charged to rookie reliever Joe Jimenez.
Jimenez was chased after allowing five hits and recording one out. He allowed five runs and has posted a 12.83 ERA in 17 games this season.
The result was a 13-2 loss to end the Tigers' seven-game homestand at Comerica Park.
These days, the Tigers focus is on development; and that Boyd was out there in the seventh inning, approaching 100 pitches, speaks to the progress he’s made.
But it marks another step in his steady progression back to form since he simplified his delivery three starts ago.
He took many of the moving parts out of his windup, and that has enabled him to repeat his delivery more consistently. It’s also enabled him to speed up his pace on the mound.
His first start with the new delivery was against the White Sox on Aug. 27 and he made one tragically bad pitch in a five-run inning — a three-run homer to Matt Davidson.
His next start was against the Indians and he allowed only one run in five innings.
Oddly, the Tigers beat the Royals 13-2 on Tuesday night. The Tigers bullpen combined to allow just one run over nine innings of work on Tuesday. They allowed nine runs over three innings on Wednesday.
Tigers third baseman Jeimer Candelario has now hit in all six of his games since being recalled from Triple-A Toledo.
Tigers second baseman Ian Kinsler tied the game at 2 with a solo home run in the fifth inning. It was his first home run since Aug. 27.
Between homers, he went just 4-for-34 with no extra-base hits.
All 15 of Kinsler's home runs in 2017 have been solo shots.
That's the most to start a season since Kal Daniels had 16 for the Cincinnati Reds in 1987.
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/royals-...nal,lock_state=final,game_tab=box,game=492182
Boxscore.
There was talk from Tigers officials that they received a call from Boston Ma. from an irate Tigers fan stating that all the dogs at Comerica Park tonight should be brought up to Tigers GM Al Avila and Tigers owner Chris Ilitch's offices and lock them inside to shit all over everything because Tigers management has turned the team to shit, dismantling the team with a payroll dump and trading off every key player except for Cabrera and Kinsler, making horrendous trades and receiving minor league players who will be mainly organizational fodder and zero chance of becoming every day regulars for the Tigers.
