DETROIT -- Edwin Jackson was having dinner at a local eatery Thursday night when a couple sitting near him started talking about the upcoming Tigers game on Friday. They recognized the name of the scheduled starter, but they couldn’t believe Edwin Jackson was still pitching at age 40, let alone back with Detroit a decade later.

Jackson, who doesn’t turn 36 for another month, chatted with them and talked about himself and his career in the third person. Nobody recognized him.

“I said I was a fan,” he said.

Ten years after his last start in a Detroit uniform, Jackson not only gave the Tigers the innings they desperately needed, the resulting 5-2 victory over the Royals earned them their first two-game winning streak since the end of May, and their first back-to-back wins at home since April 6-7.

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As Jackson, who earned his first win for the Tigers since Sept. 22, 2009, walked back to the dugout after 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball, the crowd at Comerica Park recognized him with a standing ovation. Jackson took off his glove and applauded back in appreciation.

“I appreciate it a lot, man. The fans of Detroit are great,” Jackson said. “We will never forget 2009, how they were. That’s just my way of showing my appreciation.”

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Jackson's 9 years, 321 days between wins for the Tigers is the longest gap between two wins for Detroit. The club record was 6 years, 95 days by “Wild Bill” Donovan from 1912 to 1918. The last MLB pitcher to go nine-plus years between wins for one team was Joe Nathan for the Giants, who went 12 years, 348 days from 2003 to 2016.

Even for those who barely remembered Jackson’s All-Star season for the Tigers, it was worthy of respect. The last time Jackson pitched in a Detroit uniform, Ramon Santiago was the starting shortstop, not the first-base coach. Current Tigers utility infielder Gordon Beckham was a White Sox rookie second baseman who doubled against him.

“That was fun,” said rookie catcher Jake Rogers, who just started his freshman year of high school when Jackson last started for the Tigers. “He had a good idea. Before the game, I gave him my game plan, he gave me his, and they were pretty close together. He knew how he wanted to attack guys, and he just went after them.”

The Tigers signed Jackson to a Minor League contract two weeks ago for pitching depth, knowing they could use help with a stretch of 11 games in 10 days looming and young pitchers nearing innings limits. For Jackson, who set a Major League record playing with his 13th team when he pitched for the Blue Jays earlier this season, it was just his second reunion with a former club.

His previous Tigers tenure was one season in a 17-year-career, but it stuck with him, not just because of his lone All-Star selection and a division race that went to a tiebreaker against current manager Ron Gardenhire’s Twins.

“I have family here, a lot of cousins, aunts,” Jackson said. “It’s like home. But that team we had, we had the city excited. I had a chance to catch the city when it was alive.”

The 97-mph fastball Jackson delivered to his first batter was a sign of life from a pitcher whose fastball had been averaging less than 94 mph this season. The inside-the-park home run that Whit Merrifield smacked off the center-field wall two pitches later was a less encouraging note. Yet it was the only run Kansas City produced against Jackson all evening.

“I kind of laughed to myself,” Jackson said. “Here we go. You just take that approach and continue to come at them.”

With an array of fastballs, cutters, sinkers and sliders, Jackson (2-5) made the Royals look less like the slugging juggernaut that produced four home runs a night earlier and more like the American League’s second lowest-scoring offense they have been for the season. Though Kansas City produced some quality extra-base hits and hard-hit outs, it couldn’t string together anything close to a rally.

“He throws hard,” Merrifield said. “He had a little cut to his fastball and it would sink at times, too. He was in the zone. You can see why he’s been around so long.”

Jackson’s four strikeouts were well-timed, from back-to-back whiffs of Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler to end the opening inning to a slider that fanned Dozier to end the third. When a Soler leadoff single and a Rogers passed ball put a runner in scoring position in the fourth, Jackson used a 100.8-mph lineout from Cheslor Cuthbert and a 95-mph fastball past Bubba Starling to end the threat. Back-to-back highlight stops from third baseman Dawel Lugo helped Jackson through the fifth.

Not until Starling’s one-out single in the seventh could the Royals chase Jackson, who received a pat on the chest and words of encouragement from Gardenhire as he took the ball.

“He’s a veteran guy that’s worked really hard, and he appreciates every moment that he’s getting,” Gardenhire said. “And this was a big moment, coming back here. He was excited about it, so he went out and did his thing, threw the ball great.”

Asked before the game how strange it felt to write Jackson on the lineup card, Gardenhire paused and laughed, calling it “another normal” for this season. For Jackson, even a decade later, it felt right.

“A lot of people look at it as a tough situation,” Jackson said. “I look at it as taking a group like this that has had a tough year and teaching them how to have fun. You can always take something from a season. Just teach them to have fun and leave it on the field.”