Gunnar Henderson homers as the Baltimore Orioles top the Detroit Tigers 4-2

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DETROIT (AP) — One day after breaking up a no-hitter in the ninth inning, Gunnar Henderson homered and doubled to help the Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers 4-2 on Saturday.

Henderson drove in two runs and scored twice to help the Orioles move within two games of the AL East-leading Yankees. The All-Star shortstop tripled with two out in the ninth for Baltimore’s only hit in a 1-0 loss to Detroit on Friday night.

Corbin Burnes (14-8) pitched seven innings of two-hit ball for Baltimore on Saturday.

“That’s his best start of the year,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “He just had everything going tonight.”

The Tigers trailed 4-0 going into the ninth, but Parker Meadows ended Detroit’s scoreless streak at 15 innings with a homer off Seranthony Domínguez. Colt Keith followed with a single, but Domínguez retired Kerry Carpenter and Riley Greene on deep flyballs.

Wenceel Pérez struck out, but reached first when the ball got away from James McCann. Spencer Torkelson made it 4-2 with an RBI single before Zach McKinstry grounded out to first.

“We put on a nice fight at the end,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “These guys never quit. We know that.”

The Tigers (76-73) had won five of six. They are trying to track down the Twins (78-70) for the third AL wild card.

Burnes struck out seven and walked one.

“That’s as good as I have seen him in a long time,” McCann said. “That’s what your ace does — he gives you a chance to win big games.”

Beau Brieske tossed a scoreless first inning to become the first Tigers pitcher to start on back-to-back days since Hal Newhouser in 1946.

He retired the first four batters on Friday, but walked the first two hitters on Saturday before Anthony Santander grounded into a 3-6-1 double play. He then struck out Adley Rutschman to record an MLB-record fourth straight start without allowing a hit.

After walking to start the game, Henderson doubled off Ty Madden (1-1) in the third and scored on Cedric Mullins’ base hit.

Baltimore added three runs in the seventh.

With one out, Kenta Maeda hit Emmanuel Rivera with a pitch. Rivera took third on Livan Soto’s double and scored on McCann’s sacrifice fly. Henderson followed with a 106.7-mph line drive into the service tunnel behind the right-field fence.

“It is huge any time you can create some separation late in the game — that’s something we’ve had a tough time with this year,” Hyde said. “Soto gets the huge double, Mac does a great job of getting the ball in play and Gunnar gets a pitch to hit and puts an exclamation point on the inning.

“As you could see from the ninth, you can always use more runs.”

Henderson has 37 homers on the season. He has scored 113 runs, the most by an Oriole since Roberto Alomar’s franchise-record 132 in 1996.

TRAINER’S ROOM

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Orioles: Hyde said reliever Yennier Cano wasn’t available due to “soreness,” but could pitch as soon as Sunday.

UP NEXT

The teams finish the series on Sunday afternoon in a game moved to 12:10 p.m. because of the Lions-Buccaneers game next door at Ford Field. Baltimore LHP Cade Povich (2-8, 5.91 ERA) will face RHP Keider Montero (5-6, 4.88 ERA).

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb