PHOENIX — Kerry Carpenter ran as fast as he could.

"I was thinking it, for sure," Carpenter said.

He sprinted from second base to third base after slugging a ball off the wall in center field, then rounded the corner in search of an inside-the-park home run. There was a bang-bang play at the plate, but Carpenter was tagged out to end the top of the seventh inning.

"There's so many crazy bounces, and the field is huge," Carpenter continued. "I figured it's easy to misplay balls, and it's easy for the ball to bounce over somebody's head, so I figured inside-the-park was a chance."

The Detroit Tigers notched their fourth run on the play, as Spencer Torkelson scored from first base to tie the game, but the Arizona Diamondbacks maintained the momentum from the out at the plate, scoring two runs in the bottom of the seventh.

That's how the Tigers ended up losing, 6-4.

"It was a tough play, a close play," manager A.J. Hinch said, "and it didn't go our way."

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The seventh-inning comeback attempt for the Tigers (23-23) began with Wenceel Pérez drawing an eight-pitch walk — refusing to swing at a changeup below the strike zone — to finally chase left-hander Jordan Montgomery.

With two outs, Carpenter entered as a pinch-hitter — replacing Carson Kelly — for a matchup with right-handed reliever Ryan Thompson, a side-armer who throws sinkers and sliders. Carpenter clobbered Thompson's two-strike sinker, located down-and-in, for an RBI triple off the wall in center field.

And the 26-year-old nearly had an inside-the-park home run for the first time since his teenage years in Eustis, Florida.

"Maybe in Little League," Carpenter said, "which probably wasn't an inside-the-park homer. It was probably a single with three errors."

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The aggressive send from third base coach Joey Cora would have worked, but the Diamondbacks escaped with a perfect relay from right fielder Pavin Smith to shortstop Kevin Newman to catcher Tucker Barnhart. Smith bobbled the ball before beginning the relay, which seemingly convinced Cora to keep his arm in motion.

"I never had a doubt that I was getting sent," Carpenter said. "I wasn't slowing up. And I was happy to get sent."

The Tigers challenged the play at the plate, but the umpires determined Barnhart didn't block the plate.

"We were just looking for anything," Hinch said. "At that point in the game, the challenge is basically free. It could have been blocking. It was pretty close to being blocking. ... I didn't even really wait for the video. It's a free challenge at the end of the seventh."

The Diamondbacks took a 6-4 lead with two runs in the bottom of seventh inning against right-handed reliever Alex Faedo. There were two runners in scoring position with one out when Smith rocketed a down-and-away changeup into the ground and toward shortstop Javier Báez, who fielded the high bouncer and threw home on a short hop to catcher Jake Rogers.

But Rogers dropped the ball while applying the tag.

The Diamondbacks snapped the tie, 5-4, on the mistake from Rogers, then extended the lead to 6-4 when the next batter, Blaze Alexander, grounded out. Had Rogers held onto the ball, the Tigers might have escaped the inning without allowing any runs.

After that, the Tigers left two runners in scoring position — pinch-hitter Colt Keith (single) and Riley Greene (single) — when Thompson struck out Matt Vierling and Gio Urshela to finish the top of the eighth inning.

Urshela struck out swinging at an eighth-pitch slider in the strike zone.

Tork's torque

In the third inning, Torkelson put the Tigers on the scoreboard with a solo home run to center field. The 24-year-old crushed a middle-middle 91.5 mph fastball from Montgomery.

He hit the heater 428 feet with a 106.5 mph exit velocity.

Being on time for the fastball — even a lower-velocity fastball — suggests Torkelson will tap into more home-run power soon enough. Torkelson, who hit 31 homers last season, has three homers this season, but the first two homers occurred on hanging breaking balls.

Torkelson has hits in 12 of his past 13 games, but he has a .280 batting average during that stretch. Only two of the 12 games are multi-hit games, and none of the 12 games are three-hit games.

The Tigers scored their second and third runs with Báez's RBI single in the fifth inning and Vierling's RBI double in the sixth inning.

Those hits trimmed the deficit to 4-3.

Man, oh, Manning

Right-hander Matt Manning didn't have his best pitches.

There was traffic on the bases for his entire start — from the first inning through the fifth — against the Diamondbacks, and while Manning stranded a slew of runners, he also surrendered four runs in his fifth start of the season.

"The only thing I'm really proud about is giving my team a chance to win and covering five innings and keeping it somewhat close," Manning said. "We had a chance to win at the end, but I didn't do enough to get us there."

Manning, who took Kenta Maeda's spot in the rotation for the second turn in a row, allowed four runs on 10 hits and three walks with one strikeout across five innings, throwing 86 pitches. The three left-handed hitters at the top of the lineup — Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte and Joc Pederson — collected six of the 10 hits.

"I got to make some adjustments," Manning said, when asked about his season-long struggles against left-handed hitters. "Talk with (pitching coach Chris Fetter), talk with some of the guys, try to get a little bit more deception, just tweak some stuff up, and eventually, hopefully, it starts to roll in my way."

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The game began with Carroll's leadoff triple, Marte's walk and Pederson's RBI double for a 1-0 margin. Christian Walker added a sacrifice fly to put the Diamondbacks ahead, 2-0, in the first inning.

The Diamondbacks increased their lead to 3-0 in the second inning with a four-pitch walk from Barnhart, followed by back-to-back hits from Marte and Pederson.

Marte extended his hitting streak to 18 games, despite hitting just .267 during the streak.

"Well, nobody's getting Marte out," Hinch said. "Carroll and Pederson are some of the best hitters against right-handed pitching. They fought off some pretty good pitches. The results weren't always best. ... I think Matty can use his pitches effectively. He's got a lot of weapons. We'll keep tweaking the usage."

The Diamondbacks made it 4-1 with Walker's sacrifice fly in the fourth inning. In the fifth, Manning allowed a one-out single but was bailed out of his final inning with a line drive to shortstop that resulted in a double play.

Manning, 24, owns a 4.88 ERA with 12 walks and 23 strikeouts across 27⅔ innings with the Tigers. His latest start in the big leagues forced him to battle for every out.

He generated just four whiffs on 35 swings, with the Diamondbacks putting 22 balls in play.

"It starts with getting strike one," Manning said. "That's really it. When I get strike one, that opens up everything else. When I'm fighting from behind all game, it's a really tough place to put yourself."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers come up a slide short of sweep of Arizona Diamondbacks