The final home game of the 2022 Detroit Tigers’ season ended in a 5-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins, on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Detroit. The Tigers took two out of three in their weekend series, and have been one of the hottest teams in baseball lately.
I’ll keep the recap brief as I don’t have a lot of time here, so here’s the scoop, y’see?
A fellow named Simeon Woods Richardson made his major-league debut for the Twins, and his start was a decent one: five innings, three hits, three runs, two earned, and a home run surrendered to Eric Haase, who’s been on a tear recently.
The young right-hander from Texas, a second-round draft pick by the Mets in 2018, took the loss but acquitted himself well. Look for him to be a part of that Twins rotation for a while.
On the other side of the pitching ledger, we have Joey Wentz who similarly had a good start, even if he didn’t last through the fifth. Contributing to his short outing — over 90 pitches in 4 ⅔ innings — was a quartet of walks. That’ll shorten anyone’s day, for sure.
The Tigers got things cooking in the first when Akil Baddoo’s leadoff walk was followed by a stolen base; he advanced to third on a throwing error. A Haase grounder to first that was muffed allowed Baddoo to score, and Haase scored on a wild pitch after being pushed to third by a Miguel Cabrera single. Haase made it 3-0 in the third with the aforementioned solo home run.
The Twins got on the board in the fifth, with a bases-loaded walk and a sacrifice fly narrowing the gap to 3-2. Will Vest took over for Wentz, and a quick wild pitch advanced runners to second and third, but a fly out to right got Vest (and Wentz) out of trouble.
Things stayed pretty quiet until the eighth when Old Friend™ Michael Fulmer came on to pitch for the Twins. The Tigers greeted him rather rudely, though, with Victor Reyes leading off the inning with a home run.
A pair of singles sandwiched around a walk pushed the Tigers’ lead to 5-2, and that’s where things ended.
Detroit is now headed westward, with four games in three days against the playoff-bound Mariners, who are likely going to juggle their starting rotation to set up for their Wild Card series. If the season were to end the way it is now, Seattle would be the away team in the best-2-of-3 series entirely in Toronto which, as of right now, is sitting in the top Wild Card spot.
On This Day
- On October 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.