Tigers keep rolling with a win against the Guardians
· Yahoo Sports
After a successful 7-2 West Coast road trip, the Tigers came home for a crucial three-game series against the division-rival Cleveland Guardians. A solid-enough team pitching performance, nice defence, and timely hitting — with runners in scoring position, no less! — ended up with a 6-4 win which got a little tight at the end.
Drew Anderson, who is now definitely part of the rotation, got his second start in said role. His previous start went well, sprinkling three hits across 3 2/3 innings in Seattle. Out of the bullpen he’s been pretty good, striking out a little more than one per inning and getting plenty of ground balls. The goal is to stretch him out to a full start; he probably wasn’t going to go the distance or anything, but maybe 70 pitches or so would be about his limit.
Visit sportbet.reviews for more information.
Old nemesis Tanner Bibee got the start for Cleveland. He had a 4-11 record coming into tonight’s game but his ERA and WHIP are better this year than last year, in which he went 12-11; thus, won-loss records don’t mean a whole lot. He’s spent his entire career in Cleveland, and when you look at his results against his AL Central rivals, the Tigers have easily the worst OPS-against (a meagre .597). I mean, Bibee’s no slouch, either: his career WHIP is a nifty 1.165.
Zack McKinstry made a nice running catch on the first batter of the game.
View LinkAnderson got into a speck of trouble in the top of the second: the recently-acquired Jo Adell walked to lead off the inning, and Travis Bazzana singled. But then he reached back and struck out the next three batters; the middle one, Patrick Bailey, looked at what he thought was ball four, but Anderson himself challenged the call and got it overturned. You don’t see pitchers challenging calls too often, but there you have it, and the Tigers would successfully challenge several pitches all night.
In the bottom of the second the Tigers got on the board: Riley Greene got hit on the right knee and took his base, and Spencer Torkelson followed with a double to the left-centrefield wall. Greene came around to score all the way from first, but he felt some hamstring tightness and was replaced in the field for the third inning by Ben Malgeri.
View LinkChase DeLauter evened the score with a long home run to the right-centrefield bleachers with one out in the top of the third. Like a hyperactive squirrel, he would be tough to contain all evening.
Scary moment in the bottom of the third: Kevin McGonigle was at the plate, and an up-and-in Bibee sinker sure didn’t sink, as it took quite a move for McGonigle to move his head out of the way. The ball ricocheted off something, and his helmet went flying… but, as it turns out, the ball hit McGonigle’s bat, and it was just a scary foul ball.
Anderson’s pitch count was climbing, and at the end of the fourth inning he’d hit 70 and he got the handshake. His final line: 4 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 4 K. The walks are a bit annoying, but otherwise that’s not bad at all, especially against such a pesky team as the Guardians. He mixed both a slider and a sinker into his repertoire, which he didn’t really need as a reliever. Jacob Waugespack took over in the fifth and gave up a two-out single to DeLauter but promptly stranded him; meanwhile, Bibee was settling in, retiring a bunch of guys in a row since the Torkelson double.
However, with one out in the bottom of the fifth, Max Clark singled the other way and Javier Báez singled up the middle. McKinstry lined-out for the second out, but McGonigle doubled to the right-field corner to score both Clark and Báez for a 3-1 lead.
View LinkGleyber Torres followed with a single up the middle of his own for a 4-1 lead, and holy mackerel, have the Tigers broken Bibee’s magic spell he seemed to have cast upon them?!
Waugespack carried on into the top of the sixth, and after a Nathaniel Lowe single and another Adell walk, he got into some trouble of his own. Chris Fetter paid a visit, and of course, within the next six pitches: foulout to the catcher, soft lineout to right, foulout to left field on a nice running catch by Malgeri. It ended up being a nice shutdown inning after the Tigers scored three runs, and you’ve gotta love that.
Drew Sommers, who has looked good lately, took over for Waugespack in the seventh. After striking out Brayan Rocchio, Steven Kwan walked and DeLauter collected his third hit of the night, a single to right field. Sommers’ first pitch to José Ramírez went off Dillon Dingler’s glove, allowing the runners to move up a base; Ramírez then grounded out with the infield back to trade a run for the out at first base. That was it for Sommers, and Kyle Finnegan came in to face pinch-hitter Rhys Hoskins, who grounded out to Báez at shortstop to end the inning with a 4-2 score.
With one out in the seventh both Báez (huh.) and McKinstry walked, and that was the end of Bibee’s night. On the first pitch from Matt Festa, Báez and McKinstry took off on a double steal; the throw to Ramírez at third clanked off his glove, allowing Báez to score and McKinstry moved up to third.
View LinkMcGonigle then singled, scoring McKinstry for a 6-2 lead; he took off to steal on a foul ball by Torres, so he was in Festa’s head, and this was proven on the next pitch when Festa balked and McGonigle advanced to second. Alas, Torres struck out and Dingler fouled-out to first, but those insurance runs sure were nice.
Finnegan pitched the eighth and Adell smashed a long leadoff solo home run to narrow the gap to 6-3. Bazzana followed with a long flyout to right, and you had to wonder if Finnegan would finish the inning as his control seemed to elude him. After a groundout to second and a walk it was indeed the end of Finnegan’s night, as Tyler Holton — who has been used a lot lately, but had retired 15 straight hitters coming into the contest — was brought in to deal with Rocchio. He hit a grounder to Báez’s right; Báez scooped it up and bounced a throw to McKinstry, now playing second base, to get the forceout and end the inning, and that’s sixteen batters in a row retired by Holton.
After a quick bottom of the eighth, Kenley Jansen was summoned for the save, which ended up being quite the adventure. Kwan led off with a single to left, because of course he did, but Jansen got the dangerous DeLauter to pop up to Báez for the first out. He walked Ramírez, and pinch-hitter Angel Genao, a rookie doing very well, batted for Hoskins. Jansen missed with a couple of pitches by a wide margin, and ended up walking Genao as well to load the bases, as several different body parts of various Tigers fans clenched-up real tight-like. Adell then hit a fly ball to right which was deep enough to score Kwan and narrow the gap to 6-4 with two out. Against the next batter Bazzana, Jansen was chucking shoulder-high cutters to go 3-0 on him, but after a foul ball Bazzana hit a grounder to second for the third out. Various body parts un-clenched, everyone took a deep breath, and that was the ballgame. Somehow, Jansen was credited with the save, and the Tigers continue to test their theory that having great high leverage relievers isn’t actually important.
Final score: Tigers 6, Guardians 4
Notes and Numbers- Coming into tonight’s game, Spencer Torkelson’s August may have been bereft of home runs but he was 12-for-34, for a .353 batting average and a .788 OPS.
- By OPS, though, Torkelson’s June has been his best month this year: 103 plate appearances, 6 home runs, and a .797 OPS.
- Coming into tonight’s game, the Tigers had the best run differential in the American League at +87. (Yes, that’s better than any team in the AL East, too.)
- A solar eclipse will take place on August 12; if you’re in Greenland, Iceland or Spain you might see a total eclipse, but for the northern US and Canada it’ll only be a partial eclipse. I’m in Toronto and it’ll peak here around 1:40 pm EDT, and it’ll only be a small bite out of the Sun’s disk, but that’s still pretty fun. As always, don’t stare directly at the Sun, and wear ISO-certified eclipse glasses.
- On this day in 3114 BCE, the Long-Count Mesoamerican Calendar, often known more simply as the Mayan Calendar, started. Remember back in 2012 when there was a minor hubbub about the world ending because this calendar was reaching the end of its cycle? Well, like every other world-ending prophecy that has been floated over the millennia, that one was a load of malarkey too.