The Detroit Tigers' first baseman blasted his first home run of the 2026 season, in the 25th game.
The powerful swing connecting with right-hander Chad Patrick's sinker that ran directly into Torkelson's bat path ignited the Tigers in a 5-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday, April 22, in the second of three games in the series at Comerica Park.
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The Tigers (13-12) and the Brewers (13-10) wrap up the series Thursday (1:10 p.m., Detroit SportsNet), with left-hander Tarik Skubal on the mound.
In Wednesday's game, right-hander Casey Mize set the tone for the Tigers.
Mize limited the Brewers to one run on three hits and three walks with seven strikeouts across six-plus innings, throwing 88 pitches.
He lowered his ERA to 2.51 ERA through five starts.
More notably, Mize has featured a 0.98 ERA in his past three starts with a swing-and-miss splitter.
The lone run off Mize came with two outs in the third inning, when Brice Turang walked, stole second base and scored on William Contreras' single.
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Aside from that, Mize shut down the Brewers despite runners on base in five of his seven innings.
Mize departed after a leadoff walk to Garrett Mitchell in the seventh. Right-handed reliever Kyle Finnegan cleaned up by retiring the next three batters in a row.
The Tigers supported Mize with two runs in the fourth inning and two runs in the fifth inning.
In the fourth, Torkelson launched a two-run home run (after Riley Greene's double) for a 2-1 lead.
Patrick threw a fourth-pitch 95.1 mph sinker to Torkelson.
The pitch ran middle-in and Torkelson didn't miss it, driving the ball 400 feet to left-center field with a 106.4 mph exit velocity.
In the fifth, the Tigers extended their lead to 4-1 with Kevin McGonigle's RBI double and Colt Keith's RBI single, both against Patrick.
The inning began with a leadoff single from Javier Báez.
But the big moment belonged to McGonigle, who battled for 10 pitches – including five foul balls, with four of them in a row – before hitting a down-and-in 93.1 mph fastball that ricocheted off the wall in right field for an RBI double.
To complete the play, Báez scored from first base with a head-first slide.