Detroit Tigers (18-21) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (22-19)
When: 6:40 p.m.
Where: Comerica Park in Detroit.
TV: Bally Sports Detroit.
Radio: 97.1 FM in Detroit (Tigers radio affiliates).
Starting pitchers: Detroit Tigers Michael Lorenzen (1-2, 4.18 ERA) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates Luis L. Ortiz (0-1, 3.60 ERA)
Tigers lineup: TBA.
MORE ON TUESDAY’S STARTER: Detroit Tigers have Michael Lorenzen dealing by throwing less types of pitches
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Game notes:
The Tigers avoided a sweep after a slow and steady comeback effort in the series finale against the Seattle Mariners on Sunday at Comerica Park.
Coming into the series with Seattle, the Tigers had won seven of nine games, but dropped the first two against Seattle and were outscored 14-2. However, after going down 3-1 in the third inning, the Tigers fought back and pulled away with two runs in the seventh inning.
Two majors key in the Tigers’ victories lately have been first baseman Spencer Torkelson and center fielder Riley Greene, two of the big building blocks of the future in Detroit.
In the month of May, they’re hitting a combined .333 with 11 extra-base hits and 14 RBIs. In the close-out game against the Mariners, Greene went 3-5. The young dynamic duo will look to keep the bats hot in a short series against the Bucs.
Pittsburgh is coming into town for a quick two-game series, with both teams having Monday off. In the game Tuesday, the Tigers are scheduled to face Luis L. Ortiz, who will only be making the sixth start of his career and just his second of the season with the Pirates.
In his lone start of the season against the Colorado Rockies, Ortiz gave up seven hits and five runs, although just two of those were earned runs. Ortiz had just one strikeout and one walk in the five-inning outing, meaning a lot of balls were put into play. He also had a hard hit rate of 45.5%, which would rank him near the bottom of the league, albeit an extremely small sample size.
Meanwhile, the Tigers will have Michael Lorenzen pitching, a 31-year-old veteran with a lot more experience on a major league mound. Lorenzen will be making his sixth appearance of the year on Tuesday. So far this season he has a 4.18 ERA in 28 innings pitched, with 13 earned runs, 19 strikeouts and seven walks. In his last outing against Cleveland, he went seven innings and gave up just one run, but was still given the loss because the Tigers went scoreless in a 2-0 loss.
As Our Evan Petzold recently documented, Lorenzen has found success this year by limiting the different types of pitches he is throwing. He used to have seven pitches in his arsenal and now primarily relies on five. Keep an eye out for that as he takes on the Pirates Tuesday.