DENVER — Truth be told, A.J. Hinch loves bullpen games. Give the Tigers manager a bunch of relievers with different styles, let him match up against an opposing lineup for nine innings, and he’s in his element.
“I think in general, maybe not every team, but a lot of teams would pick this method if you could sustain it,” Hinch said.
He’d just rather not do it every other day for a week, which makes what Detroit has done on this road trip special.
Three times in six days, the Tigers have had to turn to their bullpen for seven or more innings. Three times, they’ve won. On Saturday, they pulled out what qualifies as a pitching duel at Coors Field. When Zack McKinstry’s 10th-inning drive cleared the right-field fence for a go-ahead three-run homer, Detroit had essentially won a battle of bullpens on the Rockies’ home turf.
Alex Lange allowed an unearned run in the bottom of the 10th, but his two innings sealed a 4-2 win that felt fairly comfortable — surprisingly so — for most of the way. Part of that comfort came from how often the Tigers have done this lately.
Six pitchers combined to hold Colorado to six hits over 10 innings with three walks and nine strikeouts. C.J. Cron’s sixth-inning double off José Cisnero was the only extra-base hit of the bunch, setting up the Rockies’ lone run in regulation. The only Tigers to cover more than four outs were Lange and bulk reliever Zach Logue, whose 3 1/3 innings of one-hit ball made much of the mixing and matching possible.
Logue had been a starter for most of the season at Triple-A Toledo, where he’d gone 2-6 with a 5.92 ERA. Hinch held him back for a lefty-lefty matchup with former Tiger Harold Castro, and let rookie Brendan White take on the first six batters in the Rockies’ lineup instead.
“These bullpen days are crazy,” said catcher Eric Haase, whose 10th-inning single set up McKinstry’s homer. “When it goes off the rails early, it’s kind of tough to recover from. If you’re throwing from a deficit, everyone’s coming in trying to be perfect. But [White] keeping it at zero right there, then it’s one guy after the next coming out of the ‘pen, attacking the zone. It was great to see.”
Logue retired 10 of the 13 batters he faced; an error accounted for one of the runners. He was the only Detroit pitcher to face hitters twice. When Jurickson Profar’s two-out single extended the fifth inning, Hinch had Cisnero ready for the middle of the Rockies’ order. Once Cisnero finished the sixth, Hinch went with single innings for Tyler Holton and Jason Foley until Lange entered for the ninth.
“Just giving different looks to every good hitter that the other lineup has, it can be an incredible strategy,” Hinch said. “For us in particular, we have a versatile enough bullpen where we can do a lot of different things. We can run lefties in that can get righties out. We can run righties in that get lefties out. I love the back end of our ‘pen, so if we do get the lead, we have the path to a win, which is important.
“And it’s quite a bit of action. Everybody in the dugout knows that things are changing; you have to be on your toes. Everybody in the bullpen is aware when the phone rings, it might be them.”
It was actually easier Saturday because so much of it had been planned. When a comebacker knocked Reese Olson out of his start on Thursday in the second inning at Texas, everyone had to scramble. It was even tougher on Monday, when injuries knocked out Matthew Boyd and Will Vest in consecutive innings.
Detroit won both of those games and has won its past six games in which the bullpen has covered seven or more innings. Tigers pitchers have posted a 2.73 ERA in those games, allowing 48 hits in 56 innings with 16 walks and 60 strikeouts. They had a ninth-inning lead in the game before that streak before a four-run rally spoiled it.
Still, Detroit will be glad to be done with bullpen games as a habit. With Tarik Skubal and Eduardo Rodriguez scheduled to return from the injured list and start at Comerica Park against the A’s on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, the rotation will soon be restored to full strength. The Tigers will likely still use a bullpen game on occasion to give starters an extra day or give opponents a different look, but they’ll be doing so because they want to, not because they have to.