Matt Manning pitched seven scoreless innings. Alex Lange struck out the side and stranded the free extra-inning runner in a crucial 10th inning. Javier Báez finished a home run shy of the cycle — and even worked a walk.
“It was a great win,” manager A.J. Hinch said.
It was almost the opposite of the Detroit Tigers‘ 2022 season thus far. They were officially eliminated from postseason contention Tuesday. That followed talking about winning in spring training, about snapping a playoff drought. Nothing went according to the plan. Elimination felt all but official by the end of May; general manager Al Avila was fired in August. More changes are coming soon.
About six hours before the end of Friday’s 3-2, 10-inning victory over the Chicago White Sox, the clubhouse closed five minutes ahead of schedule for a brief team meeting. Hinch addressed his coaches and players Friday afternoon about missing the postseason. He had a similar conversation last year, but this time, the tone was different. The Tigers, at 55-89, are on pace to lose exactly 100 games. Poor performance is the driving factor, but injuries plagued the entire roster, forcing Hinch to employ 17 starting pitchers — the most by the franchise in more than a century — and 51 players in all. But the reality is, the Tigers didn’t play a winning brand of baseball.
That’s all that really matters.
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“Generally speaking, it’s disappointing,” Hinch said. “I’ll look pretty deeply at anything from in-game to operational to processes. We’re not good enough yet. And it starts with me. I promised the players and I’m gonna promise anybody I talk to that we got to figure out how to get this right.”
Before Friday’s game, Hinch said the Tigers had 19 games to get on the right side of winning.
They’ve started 1-0.
“It’s all encompassing, why we are where we are, but it doesn’t have to stay this way,” Hinch said. “We’re going to get to the next calendar, and, you know, enough is enough. We’ve got to figure out a better way of doing things and squeezing more out of our group, and it starts with me.
“I don’t feel very good about this season at all. I feel responsible. I’m in charge of everything that happens on the field, and we haven’t been very good. It starts with me looking at myself. It starts with the coaches and the players. If we want it to be different, we’re going to have to do some different things.”
There were reminders Friday night of the season-long frustrations, like the inability to capitalize against a laboring Lucas Giolito, double-digit strikeouts, Báez’s MLB-worst 25th and 26th errors and Spencer Torkelson neglecting to run to first base on a dropped third strike that resulted in an inning-ending double play. Too many mistakes have been made this year.
“We’re not happy with our record, but we give everything we have,” Báez said. “There’s no excuses. We didn’t play good baseball as a team. Other than all the injuries, but still, we got to play good baseball. If we’re going to lose, we gotta lose the right way. Not making the mistakes that I’m making. I had a good game hitting-wise, and I threw the ball away twice. We can’t have that.”
Báez, despite the errors, carried the Tigers’ historically bad offense. He singled in the first inning, drew his 25th walk in the third, tripled in the fifth and doubled in the eighth. The 29-year-old is batting .358 with a .978 OPS in September. Recently, Báez decided to separate his hands while gripping the bat. Focusing on feeling his right hand at the top helps him hit the ball to all fields instead of rolling over to the pull side.
But for the season as a whole, Báez has an underwhelming .666 OPS with 13 home runs in 128 games. His chase rate, 46.2%, is the worst of his career. And, again, those errors in the field. That’s not what the Tigers expected upon the agreement of a six-year, $140 million contract in December.
“We just got to focus and play better baseball than we have all year,” Báez said. “We’re trying to play smart and play hard. I can’t play about 80%. I gotta play hard every time I’m out there. I’m gonna try to finish hard and healthy and try to get my numbers up.”
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All of this happened on a night when the Tigers opened a three-game series against the White Sox, themselves preseason favorites who have stumbled for nearly the entire season, finally thriving under interim manager Miguel Cairo. The Comerica Park crowd is drying up, and metro Detroit’s focus has seemingly shifted across the street to Ford Field and its Honolulu Blue-clad inhabitants. The Tigers don’t like that. They want to be the center of attention in September and October.
The American League Central has become a three-horse race this month, featuring the Cleveland Guardians (77-66), White Sox (74-71) and Minnesota Twins (72-71). The Kansas City Royals are ahead of the Tigers at 57-88, but they’ve been eliminated as well. Hinch wants the reality of the division standings to provoke a reaction in his players.
“They should be jealous,” he said.
The closest the Tigers will get to playoff baseball this season is facing teams fighting for postseason berths. After Friday’s victory, the Tigers have five games remaining against the White Sox and three against the Twins. There’s a trip Monday to Baltimore to face the Orioles, just four games out of the AL’s third wild-card spot. The season ends with four games in Seattle against the Mariners, who are in the second wild-card spot by half a game.
But this weekend, it’s the White Sox.
“I think they thought they were going to come in and get some easy wins,” Manning said. “We didn’t like that, so we’re going to fight back.”
In Friday’s 10th inning, the White Sox sent pinch-runner Luis Robert to second as the extra-innings free runner. He never made it to third, as Lange struck out all three batters he faced: Josh Harrison with a curveball, Elvis Andrus with a fastball and Yoan Moncada with a changeup. In the bottom of the 10th, Victor Reyes delivered a walk-off sacrifice fly to score free runner Ryan Kreidler for a 3-2 win.
“We’re not just going to lay down for anybody,” Lange said. “I don’t care who you are. You’re going to have to get through our best. I don’t really care who you are. We are going to come after you. … We’re gonna play hard and try to win some ballgames. We’ll see what happens.”
Before the late-game drama, Manning took the mound and delivered seven scoreless innings on three hits, zero walks and five strikeouts. His fastball reached 97 mph, powering a heater- and slider-heavy mix that rolled through the White Sox. The 24-year-old, who threw 87 pitches in his 29th MLB start, looked like he could have taken the ball for the eighth, but Hinch chose to end his 11th outing of the season on a high note.
The game ended on a high note, too, but it was only one game in a mostly miserable season. The Tigers will need to do it all over again Saturday against veteran righty Johnny Cueto. The entire roster has 18 games left to answer a big question: Can they pull it together?
“If you ask anybody in this locker room, we’re going to accelerate to the finish line,” Lange said. “We’re not gonna lay down. If anybody comes in here think we’re just gonna lay down, that’s not what this team’s about. You know, we’ve had our struggles this year, we’ve taken our licks. But we’re getting stronger. We’re getting better.
“We’re going to continue to work, and we got a lot to prove. We’re going to finish strong and ride the momentum into next year.”