Nick Maton hits 3-run HR in 11th, Tigers beat Giants 7-5

DETROIT — Nick Maton hit a three-run homer in the 11th inning to give the Detroit Tigers a 7-5 victory over the San Francisco Giants.

LaMonte Wade Jr. gave the Giants a 5-4 lead in the top of the inning with an RBI single, and Camilo Doval (0-2) struck out two batters with runners on second and third in the bottom of the inning.

Maton, though, hit a 3-0 pitch into the right-field stands to end it.

Javier Baez, who was pulled from Detroit’s 3-1 win in Toronto for a pair of baserunning mistakes and entered the game hitting .122, singled, doubled and walked twice.

Thairo Estrada reached base four times for the Giants, including a homer and a double.

The Tigers led 4-1 in the eighth, but J.D. Davis tied it with a three-run homer.

Estrada started the game with his first career leadoff homer. The Tigers tied it in the second. Baez singled, took third on Eric Haase‘s double and scored on Spencer Torkelson‘s sacrifice fly.

Riley Greene‘s two-out triple scored Matt Vierling to put the Tigers up 2-1 in the third, and Baez made it 4-1 with a two-run double off Jakob Junis in the fifth.

The fifth could have been even bigger for Detroit, but third baseman Davis made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch of Nick Maton’s flare into shallow left.

The Giants went 1-10 with runners on base in the first seven innings, but Estrada led off the eight with a single, took second on a wild pitch and took third on Mike Yastrzemski‘s one-out single off Garrett Hill. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch brought in rookie Mason Englert, and Davis hit his first pitch into the right-field stands.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Giants: OF Austin Slater (hamstring) was scheduled to begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A Sacramento on Friday evening.

Tigers: OF Austin Meadows (anxiety) worked out with the team on Friday, but Tigers manager A.J. Hinch says there is no timeline set for his return to the active roster.

UP NEXT

The teams play the second of the three-game series Saturday, with San Francisco’s Anthony DeScalfani (1-0, 0.73) facing a yet-to-be-announced Tigers starter.

CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”