The Detroit Tigers came up empty at the plate in extra innings in Sunday's series finale against the Kansas City Royals.

The Tigers and Royals were tied after nine innings in the fourth game of the series of Comerica Park. The Royals drove in the designated runner on second base in the 10th inning with a groundout and sacrifice fly from Bobby Witt Jr., while the Tigers failed to plate Ryan Kriedler from second in the bottom of the 10th to fall 4-3 .

Zach McKinstry popped out in foul territory, followed by a flyout from Spencer Torkelson, a Riley Greene intentional walk and Dillon Dingler popped out to end the hopes of a Tigers sweep.

"That was a winnable game," manager A.J. Hinch said. "We put ourselves in a position. We probably could have tacked on and created a little more space and then they did a good job of battling back."

The Royals (9-14) struck first with two runs off Tigers starter Tarik Skubal in the second inning, courtesy of four singles. The Tigers (13-9) answered with a four-hit inning in the fifth to tie the game 2-2.

Detroit briefly took the lead on a McKinstry RBI single in the seventh inning, but Kansas City tied it in the eighth on an RBI single from former Tiger Mark Canha.

The Tigers still took three of four from the Royals, and will host the San Diego Padres for a three-game series starting Monday.

"We left a couple of opportunities out there that we will look back on and wish we could get back," Hinch said. "And I know throughout the series, they had a number of at-bats they wish they could get back as well. ... They did a little bit better job than we did today."

Tarik Skubal levels out after early runs

Skubal mostly avoided hard contact from the Royals, who found success by finding the gaps in the Tigers' defense. All seven of the Royals' hits off Skubal were singles with an average exit velocity of 85.9 mph.

The Royals struck first by stringing together four singles in the second inning to take a 2-0 lead. Maikel Garcia and Hunter Renfroe hit one-out singles into right field, followed by RBI singles from Vinnie Pasquantino and Drew Waters for the early edge.

"That's a good team over there," Skubal said. "They fouled off a ton of pitches, good pitches too, and then were able to kind of push some stuff the other way.

"They ended up with seven singles today and they were all to the right side of the field. So clearly that was the approach and one through nine they were able to execute."

After the four-hit second inning, the Royals put two on base in the third thanks to a two-out single from Canha and a Garcia walk, but Skubal got a groundout from Renfroe to end the threat.

He allowed a two-out single in the fourth inning and a leadoff single in the fifth, but worked around the baserunners to finish the five-inning outing without surrendering another run. His day ended after Dingler threw out Witt trying to steal second base in the fifth inning.

Skubal threw 91 pitches, 68 for strikes and gave up seven hits, one walk and two earned runs with four strikeouts. He threw 34 changeups, 26 sinkers, 21 fastballs, nine sliders and one knuckle curveball. He induced 12 swings and misses, including eight with his changeup, which accounted for his four strikeouts.

"It was alright," Skubal said of his start. "I thought my execution could have been better."

Zach McKinstry delivers

Skubal was in line for the loss after pitching the fifth inning.

The Tigers got on the scoreboard in the bottom-half when Colt Keith and Trey Sweeney led off with singles. Kerry Carpenter and McKinstry drove them both in with a pair of RBI singles to knot the score.

McKinstry briefly gave the Tigers a 3-2 lead with another RBI single in the seventh inning, but the Royals equalized in the eighth with a Canha RBI single after Witt reached on a Javier Báez throwing error. McKinstry went 3-for-5 and is tied for second on the team with 11 RBIs.

"Z-Mac has forced himself into the conversation a lot," Hinch said pregame about the lineup construction.

Jared Ramsey covers sports for the Detroit Free Press . Contact him at ; Follow Jared on X or Bluesky .