TORONTO -- had his best start since rejoining the Tigers’ rotation on Tuesday, shutting down the Blue Jays over five two-hit innings as they cruised to a 10-1 victory for their sixth straight win.

Detroit’s AL Wild Card chances are still slim -- they remain 4 1/2 games back of the final spot and entered play Tuesday with 1% playoff odds, according to FanGraphs. But Anderson did all he could to continue the Tigers’ improbable push.  

Even with his fastball velocity down 1.4 mph from his season average (95.4 mph), Anderson crossed up Toronto hitters with a well-sequenced and well-located array of four-seamers, changeups, curveballs and sliders. He threw 88 pitches (58 strikes), and 45 of them were within what Baseball Savant defines as the “shadow zone,” or one ball width from the edge of the strike zone, a 51% rate that is well above the league-average rate of 41.5%.

That included a brief stretch in the third inning when Anderson’s control wavered, and he issued consecutive walks to George Springer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. However, he escaped that jam by getting Alejandro Kirk to roll over on a curveball at the knees. All told, the two hits Anderson allowed were on a softly hit ball and a grounder; he struck out four batters and elicited seven whiffs -- five on his pinpoint fastball.  

The Tigers were hitless against the Blue Jays’ bullpen day until the arm meant to provide the bulk of their innings, Michael Lorenzen, entered in the fourth. The 34-year-old journeyman nearly had a clean inning, but the Tigers staged a two-out rally. Lorenzen lost the zone, walking Riley Greene and Eduardo Valencia. Max Clark slashed an RBI double down the left-field line, and broke the game open by crushing a hanging sweeper for a three-run blast.

Although Detroit didn’t record a hit until the four-run outburst, there were previous signs of life. Second baseman Ernie Clement robbed Valencia of a single with a diving stop, and Brett Bateman made a leaping catch at the wall on a drive from Kevin McGonigle in the third. Greene padded the Tigers’ lead with a 101.5 mph two-out RBI single off Lorenzen in the fifth, and John Peck singled home Torkelson in the sixth. A two-run throwing error by Kirk in the eighth made the game a laugher.