DETROIT (AP) — Rookie Keider Montero pitched Detroit’s first shutout in three seasons and the Tigers beat the Colorado Rockies 11-0 Tuesday night.
Montero (5-6) was making his 14th major league start and became the first Tigers pitcher with nine shutout innings since Spencer Turnbull’s no-hitter in Seattle on May 18, 2021. The 24-year-old right-hander needed 96 pitchers while facing the minimum 27 batters. He allowed three singles and struck out five without walking a batter.
All of Colorado’s singles — Ryan McMahon in the second, Ezequiel Tovar in the seventh and Aaron Schunk in the eighth — were followed by double plays by the Tigers’ infield.
Parker Meadows hit a solo homer in the first inning, his seventh, and drove in three runs.
Rockies starter Bradley Blalock (1-3) allowed five runs on five hits with five walks in four innings.
Colorado pitchers retired the final 23 batters in Sunday’s 4-1 win in Milwaukee, but that streak ended when Meadows hit Blalock’s second pitch into the right-field stands. It was the first time Meadows and Blalock — high school teammates at Grayson High School in Georgia — had faced each other in the majors.
The Tigers loaded the bases in the second on two walks and an error, and Riley Greene tripled into the right-field corner to make it 4-0. Matt Vierling followed with an RBI single to put Detroit up by five.
Meadows had a two-run single off Anthony Molina in the sixth, making it 7-0, and he scored the eighth run on Vierling’s sacrifice fly. Andy Ibáñez had a two-run single later in what became a six-run inning for the Tigers.
The last Tigers pitcher to achieve a “Maddux” – a shutout in fewer than 100 pitches named after Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux — was David Price against Cleveland on June 12, 2015.
UP NEXT
The teams continue the three-game series on Wednesday. RHP Casey Mize (2-6, 4.30 ERA) gets the start for Detroit. Colorado has not named a starter.
