Detroit — It wasn’t a perfect game. But it was a perfect start.
And though it was over early, as planned, Tarik Skubal’s much-anticipated return sure did feel like the perfect antidote for AJ Hinch and his injury-plagued roster.
But then came another reality check for the Tigers, as a feel-good night ended with an all-too-familiar numbness and a hopeful homestand began with an ugly reminder.
A shutout loss to the hapless Oakland A’s, who hadn’t blanked a team even once in their first 86 games this season? A 1-0 loss in extra innings to a team flirting with record-setting futility this season? Come on, really?
After the explosive start that Skubal provided, this July 4th show proved to be a massive dud after dusk. And as encouraging as that 2023 debut was for the Tigers’ best young arm – Skubal looked dominant in pitching four innings of no-hit ball – there was no hiding the frustration afterward.
“No, I hate the loss,” Hinch said at the start of his postgame media session. “I mean, we had every chance to win the game. I counted seven at-bats that were pretty critical, and in those bats, I think we drew two walks.”
And as a result, they scored no runs against a team that’s giving them up like candy at a Fourth of July parade. Oakland is on pace to allow more than 1,000 runs this season, but the Tigers somehow came away empty-handed Tuesday.
The first of those walks Hinch noted was Kerry Carpenter’s pinch-hit walk that loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. That brought Javy Baez to the plate with a chance to be the hero again, two days after belting a grand slam in the Tigers’ 14-9 outburst in Colorado. But after taking a first-pitch fastball to gain the advantage with a 1-0 count, the Tigers’ shortstop proceeded to strike out on four pitches against A’s Lucas Erceg, a rookie reliever who was still playing third base in the Brewers’ farm system two years ago.
Baez, who was 5-for-40 in his last 10 games, fouled off the next two offerings, one of which looked like a hanging slider over the middle of the plate, and then watched the last paint the outside corner for a called third strike. Baez shared his displeasure with home-plate umpire Bill Miller and then spiked his helmet on the way back to the dugout. But replays didn’t exactly support his argument, nor did many in the crowd of 26,000-plus at Comerica Park.
The other clutch at-bat – or what passed for it on this night for Detroit – came from Matt Vierling, who drew a walk without even swinging the bat with two outs in the bottom of the 10th against A’s closer Travis May. But with runners at first and second and a chance to tie the game with a base hit – or win it with an extra-base knock — Spencer Torkelson instead capped an 0-for-5 night with a flyout to centerfield.
And just like that, the lone remaining MLB team without a shutout this season had one, while a Tigers team that’s still masquerading as a contender in a pathetic A.L. Central showed why that’s probably wishful thinking.
Coming off a successful road trip to Texas and Colorado, the Tigers viewed this final homestand before the All-Star break as a huge opportunity. It wasn’t just that the league-worst A’s were coming to town, either. In fact, that really wasn’t it at all.
It was that Skubal was rejoining the starting rotation after more than 11 months – 337 days, to be exact – and long, arduous rehab following major arm surgery. And it was that 24 hours later, his return would be followed by another, with Eduardo Rodriguez, who looked like a Cy Young candidate earlier this spring, scheduled to make his first start in nearly six weeks after suffering a ruptured pulley tendon in his left index finger.
Not that Hinch wanted to even talk about that prior to Tuesday’s game, given the run of bad injury luck he and the Tigers have had to endure lately. Heck, even Monday’s off-day relief was marred by the news that reliever Tyler Alexander is likely lost for the season with a shoulder injury that occurred on his final pitch in Sunday’s win in Denver.
“I just want to get to tomorrow,” Hinch said, smiling at his own expense. “I’ll believe it when I get tomorrow, the way these days have gone. We’ll put a bubble around him today. But, yeah, it’ll be nice to fill out a rotation.”
But even a healthy rotation anchored by Rodriguez and Skubal probably won’t take this team very far in the second half of the season. The Tigers own the fifth-worst run differential in the majors this season, and it’s not because of their pitching. Oakland won this game Tuesday despite managing just two hits, one walk and no earned runs.
Getting the team’s best hitter, Riley Greene, and Akil Baddoo back healthy certainly should help spark the Tigers’ offense. Both players are in the midst of rehab assignments in Toledo right now, and a return to the lineup in Detroit before the break is part of the “dream” scenario Hinch was referencing last week.
Yet the reality is what team president Scott Harris will have to deal with soon enough. The MLB trade deadline is looming at the end of the month, and while there’s still time to “look up, see the forest and determine our path forward,” as Harris said a couple weeks ago, efforts like this one Tuesday should give him some clarity.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
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