Detroit – The Tigers have faced a battalion of right-handed starting pitchers this month – 16 of the first 17 games, to be precise. And with left-handed hitters Riley Greene and Akil Baddoo out of the lineup for most of the month, it was a challenge.
There was some clamoring, as you might expect, for a left-hander.
Be careful what you wish for.
The Tigers got their lefty Tuesday and it went poorly.
Kansas City’s Daniel Lynch smothered the nine right-handed hitters for seven innings, blanking the Tigers on two hits and setting up the Royals’ 1-0 win at Comerica Park.
“We just didn’t do anything offensively to pressure Lynch,” manager AJ Hinch said. “When you swing at a lot of first pitches and you don’t generate a lot of hard contact, it makes for a quick night and it feels a lot worse than it probably is.”
The Tigers’ best opportunities came in the eighth and ninth. Another lefty, Aroldis Chapman, loaded the bases on walks in the eighth. But he got Spencer Torkelson to ground out to shortstop.
Against Royals right-handed closer Scott Barlow in the ninth, Javier Báez ripped a ball into left field and hustled his way to a double with one out. Barlow, though, got left-handed pinch-hitters Kerry Carpenter (ground out to first) and Zach McKinstry (strikeout) to end the game.
“We got the matchups we wanted with guys on base,” Hinch said. “But we didn’t do anything with it.”
It was the 10th time the Tigers have been shutout this season, the fifth time this month. They are averaging 4.9 runs in the 13 other games, scoring at least five runs in nine of them. Feast or famine.
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This game was over in two hours and 11 minutes and that was partly due to Lynch’s rapid-fire pace. He rarely let the pitch-timer get inside eight seconds.
“The game felt fast because he was generating soft contact in early counts,” Hinch said.
Lynch mixed essentially two pitches – fastball and changeup – and blew through his seven innings in just 78 pitches. He only struck out two but the 19 balls the Tigers put in play against him were softly-struck (87 mph average exit velocity).
Andy Ibanez got the lone hit off him, an opposite-field single in the fourth.
“He mixed well,” Tigers catcher Jake Rogers said. “He was throwing changeups in hitter’s counts. Salvy (Royals catcher Salvador Perez) was great calling the game. Kind of tip your cap to him and what he did to us. He was throwing heaters up and his changeup was pretty good. He was throwing it away (to the outside part of the plate) and couldn’t stay through it.”
It left another skinny margin of error for Tigers starter Michael Lorenzen.
His compete level, always high, was off the charts. And it had to be. By virtue of his own early command issues and misplays by his defenders, he was pitching out of trouble inning after inning.
“There was some generous scoring with the lack of errors,” Hinch said. “There could’ve been three errors at least. But Michael locked in and stayed in it. He made some big pitches with guys on base and really left it out there, which I can really appreciate.
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“He did his part, especially responding to quite a few base runners that weren’t all his fault.”
When Lorenzen walked off the mound after six innings and got the handshake from Hinch, only one run had scored on his watch.
“Just keep my mind quiet and not try to do too much,” said Lorenzen, who struck out seven. “Just keep making pitches. I’ve had trouble with that past games, trying to do too much, getting behind guys and trying to make better pitches than we need to.
“I was just trying to pick up some of the guys and continue to make pitches.”
He made critical pitches when he most needed to.
Like when he froze Nick Pratto with a 94-mph fastball, stranding runners at the corners. He did the same with Nicky Lopez with two on and out in the fourth, got him looking at a fastball. Even in the sixth, when the Royals broke through on a run-scoring double by Matt Beaty, Lorenzen struck out Drew Waters to strand two runners.
Lorenzen was kicking himself about the 2-1 changeup he threw to Beaty.
“Open base in the sixth inning and I left a changeup up,” he said. “That’s frustrating. I’m going to think about that tonight in bed, for sure. Otherwise it’s a 0-0 game.”
Lorenzen gave up six hits, but only two made it to the outfield. Three of them were misplays by Tigers’ infielders that were scored singles, two by Jonathan Schoop at third base. But Lorenzen kept getting big outs.
The Royals were 2-for-10 against him with runners in scoring position.
“It was pretty incredible,” Rogers said. “We’re always trying to back him up and make plays. But when we don’t, we need them (pitchers) to pick us up, as well. He did that perfectly tonight. That’s what I kept telling him walking off the field. ‘Keep battling, keep getting outs. We will help you eventually.'”
Maybe next time.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky