Baseball is back in Detroit, and the Tigers are back in the win column.
Kerry Carpenter cranked two homers and Jack Flaherty smothered the White Sox to power the Tigers to a 7-4 win over their division rivals on Opening Day in Detroit.
Carpenter struck in the first to give the Tigers the lead, taking right-hander Jonathan Cannon deep off of the right-field foul pole. He struck again in the fourth, taking left-hander Brandon Eisert the other way out to left.
With just his fifth career homer against a lefty, Carpenter joined Prince Fielder and Dmitri Young as the only Tigers with a multi-homer game on Opening Day at Comerica Park.
Carpenter's second dinger put Detroit up 4-1 after RBI's in the third by Zach McKinstry and Dillon Dingler, which was all the support that Flaherty would need.
Making his first start in Detroit since being dealt to the Dodgers at last year's trade deadline, Flaherty picked up where he left off and limited the White Sox to one run on three hits over 5 2/3 innings. He struck out seven, walked two and left the mound with a 6-1 lead.
Five of Flaherty's strikeouts came with his slider, one each with his knuckle curve and fastball.
Tyler Holton, Kenta Maeda, who allowed three runs in the ninth, and Will Vest combined to finish the job.
Riley Greene padded the Tigers' lead in the seventh with his third homer of the season, a 417-foot bomb into the bleachers in right. It was the second hardest-hit ball of Greene's career.
The win moved the Tigers to 3-4 and into first place in the AL Central, where every team entered the day at 2-4 or worse.
