Detroit – When something that hasn’t happened hardly at all this season happens twice in a matter of days, twice in back-to-back at-bats, it’s alarming.
Tigers reliever Alex Lange’s curveball has been one of the best weapons in baseball this season. Opponents were hitting just .167 against it, swinging and missing 60% of the time.
But with the Tigers up 3-2 in the top of the seventh, the pitch betrayed him.
With one out in the seventh, left-handed hitting Adam Frazier lashed a curveball into the gap in right-center field for a triple. Abraham Toro, a switch-hitter also batting left-handed, hit the next pitch, another curveball from Lange, 403 feet into the seats in right field.
The two unsuspecting blasts sent the Seattle Mariners on to a 5-3 win over the Tigers at Comerica Park.
“That’s his pitch,” catcher Eric Haase said. “Obviously we got beat and it sucks. But it’s his best pitch. You feel a little more comfortable getting beat with his best pitch. You never want to get beat, but it wasn’t like he was just laying heaters in there.
“He was attacking guys with his best stuff. Kudos to Toro, coming up and swinging at an 0-0 breaking ball and putting a good swing on it. Tough to be upset about that.”
The Mariners were sitting on and doing damage against Matt Manning’s breaking ball, his slider, on Tuesday night.
“We’re looking to get a ground ball there,” Haase said. “The best chance of getting one is with his breaking ball. It was down and in and he scooped it. It sucks.”
These have been hard times for Lange. He came into the game with an 8.40 ERA (14 earned runs in 15 innings) since the All-Star break and was torched for three runs in his last outing Sunday in Texas.
This from a guy who had a 2.04 ERA before the break.
Lange has pitched 51 innings this season, 16 more than last year. Manager AJ Hinch was asked if he thought he’d hit a wall, physically.
“I’ll have to take a look at it, but recent memory, he’s been a little erratic,” Hinch said. “There’s no excuse. He’s not going to tell you either way, whether he is tired or not. We were in a good place in the order where we wanted those guys left-handed and we wanted to use spin. Alex can get those two guys out.
“But when they put the ball in the air to the pull side, it’s partly credit to them and partly curiosity on where Alex is at physically.”
BOX SCORE: Mariners 5, Tigers 3
Gregory Soto, who also gave up three runs in Texas Sunday, struggled with his command again. He walked three batters, including Ty France with the bases loaded, in the top of the ninth.
It was a 32-pitch, 18-ball inning for Soto.
“You’d have to ask him about his confidence,” Hinch said. “But I will tell you where I see his command — not where it needs to be, obviously.”
This game began and ended in frustration for the Tigers.
They had Mariners starter Marco Gonzales on the ropes and couldn’t deliver the knockout punch.
He gave up three singles, a walk, two hit batsmen and a wild pitch among the first 10 hitters of the game. And all that traffic resulted in just two runs — one on a Jeimer Candelario single and the other on a ground out by Willi Castro. The Tigers were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position and stranded five runners in the first two innings.
But Harold Castro in the first and Javier Báez in the second hit bullets that were snared by third baseman and former Tiger Eugenio Suarez, who also blasted a two-run homer on a 3-0 pitch off Tigers starter Tyler Alexander in the first inning.
“I thought we executed our plan really well,” said Haase, who had two singles and scored both Tigers runs. “There were a lot of hard-hit baseballs that just found people. I don’t know if it was their defensive positioning or what, but a lot of balls were smoked right at people ending some big innings for us.”
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Gonzales was at 45 pitches and still wobbly, but the Tigers didn’t deliver another solid blow until Haase, Kerry Carpenter and Candelario singled and broke the 2-2 tie in the sixth.
To have 10 baserunners in six innings against Gonzales and squeeze just three runs out of it — costly.
“When we talk about missed opportunities, we usually talk about chase and swing-and-miss or bad mistakes here and there,” Hinch said. “But two hard line drives to third base? We say they are missed opportunities but there’s only so much you can control.
“Get a good pitch to hit and hit it hard. Both did. A foot either way and we might be talking about breaking the game open.”
The Tigers had one more opportunity. In the bottom of the ninth, Mariners reliever Paul Sewald walked Willi Castro and Victor Reyes and with two outs, Báez had a chance to tie or win the game.
Sewald attacked him. Báez had three pitches to hit — a 93-mph fastball that he fouled off, a center-cut slider that he took for a strike and 94-mph fastball that he fouled away.
Finally, on the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Báez chased a slider out of the strike zone — game over.
Twitter@cmccosky
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