ARLINGTON, Texas — Wily Peralta threw seven scoreless innings in his longest big league outing since 2016 and the Detroit Tigers beat the Texas Rangers 7-3 on Monday night.
No. 9 batter Zack Short homered for the Tigers, who have won three in a row and five of six. Former Rangers outfielder Nomar Mazara twice drove in a run without a hit.
Peralta (2-1), back in the majors only three weeks, struck out six without a walk while throwing 61 of 91 pitches for strikes. The right-hander allowed only three hits in his fourth start for Detroit.
Kolby Allard (2-5) struck out a career-high nine in his 5 1/3 innings, and only two of the five runs scored against the Texas lefty were earned.
The Rangers avoided a shutout with back-to-back two-out homers in the ninth off reliever Bryan Garcia. All-Star right fielder Joey Gallo’s 21st homer was an opposite-field, two-run shot to left before Jonah Heim also went deep.
The 32-year-old Peralta was released by Kansas City midseason two years ago and spent all of 2020 as a free agent before going to spring training this year with the Tigers on a minor league deal and starting the season at Triple-A Toledo. He made 120 starts for Milwaukee from his debut in 2012 until the Brewers moved him to the bullpen midway through the 2017 season, and was a reliever for all 79 of his games for the Royals in 2018 and 2019. The last time he had pitched at least seven innings was in back-to-back starts in 2016 (Aug. 30 and Sept. 6).
Detroit went ahead to stay in the fourth when Miguel Cabrera had a leadoff single and later scored as Mazara reached on a fielder’s choice grounder.
The Tigers scored five times in the sixth, the first two runs coming when first baseman Nate Lowe was charged with two errors on a ball hit by Mazara with the bases loaded. Lowe misplayed the grounder, then tossed the ball toward an unoccupied first base, allowing another run to score and ending Allard’s night.
Willi Castro had a RBI sac bunt on the first pitch by reliever Brett Martin, and two pitches later Short’s second homer of the season was a two-run shot that made it 6-0. Short added a sac fly in the eighth.
Gold Glove-winning right fielder Gallo made a leaping catch at the wall when rookie Akil Baddoo hit the first pitch of the game toward the right field corner.
HALE BACK TO COLLEGE
Third base coach Chip Hale worked his final game with the Tigers. He was named Monday as the new head coach at Arizona, his alma mater where he was part of a national championship as a player in 1986. He will be introduced Tuesday on the Tucson campus. “I asked him to work tonight so that we can stabilize things,” first-year Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. Bench coach George Lombard will take over as third base coach the rest of this week going into the All-Star break.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Tigers: CF Daz Cameron was scratched from the lineup with a sprained big right toe after he crashed into the wall when tracking flyballs during pregame batting practice. Baddoo replaced Cameron in center.
UP NEXT
Tigers right-hander José Ureña (2-8, 6.22 ERA) makes his first July start after going winless in June — 0-4 with a 12.50 ERA over 18 innings in five starts. Rookie right-hander Dane Dunning (3-6, 4.38), still being limited by the Rangers, hasn’t gone more than five innings his last seven games.
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