<table> </table> DETROIT | All was right with the Royals when they last saw Comerica Park.</p><p>Yes, it&#8217;s been a long time.</p><p>The Royals marked their return Friday to the Motor City with a 6-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers. Nothing new, really. Start with an increasingly unproductive offense. Throw in another costly defensive mistake. And cap it with the latest too-brief outing from Kyle Davies.</p><p>The result was an 18th loss in 21 games.</p><p>&#8220;Not enough production,&#8221; manager Trey Hillman said. &#8220;Not enough two-out hits. That&#8217;s part of the issue. We need more two-out hits.&#8221;</p><p>And &#8230;</p><p>&#8220;We have to have to ability to stop the bleeding when the defense makes a mistake,&#8221; Hillman added. &#8220;Unfortunately, we didn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p><p>Davies rolled through the first four innings before everything unraveled in a six-run fifth that began with a throwing error by shortstop Mike Aviles.</p><p>Four runs were unearned.</p><p>&#8220;Even in the fifth,&#8221; Davies said, &#8220;I threw some really good pitches. A bit unlucky. A broken-bat (hit) falls in. A jammed shot falls in. Two seeing-eye singles to the left side. The (Curtis) Granderson one was hit well.&#8221;</p><p>Granderson rammed a two-run triple into the right-center gap that gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead. It got worse thereafter. A lot worse.</p><p>&#8220;That inning was a little bit of everything,&#8221; catcher John Buck said. &#8220;The defense failed him a little bit, but Granderson hit the one mistake Kyle did make.&#8221;</p><p>Davies suffered his fourth straight loss in falling to 5-6. He allowed eight hits in 4 2/3 innings; six of them came in the fifth. It marked the sixth time in his last seven starts that he failed to last six innings.</p><p>This was the Royals&#8217; first visit to Detroit since the first series of the season, when they stunned the Tigers with a three-game sweep. Coming into this game, the Tigers had also lost four straight and showed signs of a club playing out the string.</p><p>None of that mattered.</p><p>Detroit starter Zach Miner, 8-4, beat the Royals for the third time this season by yielding just one run in six innings. He has allowed three earned runs in 21 innings over those three starts.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a guy you don&#8217;t fear facing,&#8221; third baseman Mark Teahen said. &#8220;But the numbers he&#8217;s put up against us this year, I guess we should. He doesn&#8217;t throw overly hard. He doesn&#8217;t have really great stuff.</p><p>&#8220;Maybe it&#8217;s a confidence thing he has against us. He&#8217;s a guy we need to get to. We didn&#8217;t do it.&#8221;</p><p>The Royals scratched out single runs in the seventh and ninth against the Tigers&#8217; bullpen but never got the tying run to the plate.</p><p>The loss dropped the Royals to 56-78, which leaves them four games worse than last year&#8217;s record through 134 games. They must win 17 of their remaining 28 games to avoid losing 90 games for the seventh time in eight years.</p><p>The Royals collected 11 hits, including Teahen&#8217;s first home run since July 10. That staked Davies to a 1-0 lead in the second inning.</p><p>It was the only run Miner allowed, though the Royals had plenty of chances. They stranded seven runners in the first five innings and nine in all.</p><p>The Royals, because of those botched opportunities, were still clinging to a 1-0 lead when Aviles opened the Detroit fifth with a throwing error after fielding Marcus Thames&#8217; routine one-hopper to short.</p><p>&#8220;The biggest part of that inning,&#8221; Tigers manager Jim Leyland said, &#8220;was Marcus Thames busting his tail to get to first. Without him running that hard, the ball gets picked up and he&#8217;s out. It probably frustrated (Davies) a little bit.&#8221;