Much needed.

Tigers 8, Pirates 4

Buck Farmer (1 GS, 5 IP, 7.20 ERA, 5.33 FIP, 0.0 fWAR) was called on to play the role of stopper. Wait, what? Farmer has some nice moments and flashed some potential, but five innings of four run baseball won’t get you a contract extension. He gave up a bomb, six hits, a walk, and punched out four in his debut. Granted, he probably needs two more years of seasoning, so that’s not a bad outing at all. The bats woke up too. Castellanos plated VMart in the 2nd, Avila homered in the 5th, and then lots of guys helped add two more later in that inning. Nick untied it in the 6th with a blast and then the Tigers added three more in the 7th. Joba did the trick and Nathan put two on and survived. The win was needed and the Tigers will look to split with Max Scherzer (24 GS, 161 IP, 3.13 ERA, 2.88 FIP, 4.2 fWAR) on the hill Thursday.

The Moment: Nick hits a go ahead homer in the 6th.