Print edition: 
DETROIT — Sometimes you just know, right? One sip is all it takes. Or one forkful. Or one pitch on the first at-bat.
Gregor Blanco tried to call timeout Tuesday night as the first batter in the first inning on a full-count offering from Detroit's Rick Porcello at Comerica Park.
Umpire Jim Reynolds didn't grant the request as Blanco backed from the plate with his hand extended backward, and the pitch split the plate for a called third strike. And you just knew something like this — Tigers 9, Royals 1 — was going to happen.
"He said he didn't see me" call time, Blanco said, "but I called out, too. He said (Porcello) had already started, but it was too early. As soon as I got in the box, I saw him start his windup, and I called time out... ," Granting timeout is at the umpire's discretion.
A pivotal moment? Of course not, but ... you just knew.
Here's the kicker, Blanco's at-bat was still, maybe, the best one the Royals produced against Porcello in the first four innings. They went 12 up and down before Billy Butler opened the fifth inning with a single.
By then, the Tigers had a 3-0 lead against Kyle Davies. That was plenty, but Detroit knocked out Davies (6-8) with a four-run fifth inning. Knocked out the Royals, too.
Porcello (6-11) won for just the second time in 12 starts since May 23 — a span that included a four-week remedial tour in the minors. He was dominant in permitting just two hits, both singles, in seven shutout innings.
"He was throwing a different slider," Butler said. "It was almost like a cutter. His velocity wasn't what it has been, but he had a lot more movement on his fastball. He was hitting his spots, and the ball was moving all over the place."
Daniel Schlereth worked a scoreless eighth before the Royals avoided a seventh shutout loss on Kila Ka'aihue's two-out homer in the ninth inning against Ryan Perry.
The Tigers extended their winning streak to five games and pulled back to .500 at 63-63. They have outscored opponents 40-7 in their five victories.
Davies allowed seven runs and 12 hits while laboring through 108 pitches in 2/3 innings. Kanekoa Texeira gave up two runs in his 2 1/3 innings.
The Tigers finished with 16 hits, including three by Jhonny Peralta and two apiece from Austin Jackson, Will Rhymes, Miguel Cabrera, Ryan Raburn and Brennan Boesch. Seven different players drove in runs, while six scored at least once.
"They swung the bats," Davies said. They were real aggressive, and I couldn't get them to hit them at people. The fifth inning, I just couldn't get anybody out."
The loss dropped the Royals back to 20 games under .500 at 53-73. They must win this afternoon to avoid suffering their first three-game sweep at Comerica in more than eight years (July 23-25, 2002, to be exact).
The Tigers scored in the first inning for a sixth straight game when they scratched out a 1-0 lead after Jackson led off with an infield single. He stole second, went to third on a sacrifice and scored on Cabrera's sacrifice fly.
It was Cabrera's 104th RBI. Nobody else in either league started the day with more than 97.
Davies escaped a two-on-no-out jam in the third before things began unraveling in the fourth after Brandon Inge ripped a leadoff single past a stationary Wilson Betemit at third. It was Inge's 1,000th career hit.
Boesch followed with a sharp hopper past first that a fan grabbed by reaching over the short wall where the stands jut out in right field. That made it a rulebook double for Boesch, but the umpires ruled Inge was sufficiently advanced on the bases to score.
