Detroit – There was a time Saturday when the sun was out, the grass was dry and the Tigers had an early lead.
All three proved unsustainable.
The San Diego Padres scored 14 unanswered runs after an 84-minute rain delay and beat the Tigers for the second straight night, 14-3 in front of a lively crowd of 31,974 at Comerica Park.
“We had Matt Manning on the mound and he was starting to pitch great, it is unfortunate,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “But it is the reality. We didn’t expect the biggest rain storm to come. But outdoor baseball this time of year, it’s not really a surprise.”
The announcement was made for the fans to seek shelter in the top of the second inning, just as Manning was in the middle of a three-pitch strikeout of Alfonso Rivas.
Lightning had been sighted in the area and a pop-up storm was imminent. But the game continued, even as the fans were filing begrudgingly up the aisles toward the concourse.
Padres’ rookie left-hander Jackson Wolf, making his big-league debut, set down the first five hitters he faced. But as the rain started to fall, he walked left-handed hitting Zach McKinstry and gave up a single to Miguel Cabrera.
The rain was just about full-force when Jake Rogers followed with an RBI double. Home plate umpire and crew chief Todd Tichenor was calling for the grounds crew almost before Cabrera reached third base.
Play was suspended at that point.
When it resumed, Wolf was still pitching and Zack Short greeted him with a two-run single. Two hours and two innings into this game and the Tigers were up 3-0.
BOX SCORE: Padres 14, Tigers 3
It took the Padres five batters in the top of the third to erase that lead.
The Tigers opted not to bring Manning back after the delay. He’d thrown 32 pitches in the first two innings in just his fifth start back after missing two months with a foot injury. He also pitched through a rainy first inning back on July 8 and came out of that start with some discomfort in his side and back.
“I settled in and got out of what could have been a big (first) inning,” said Manning, who walked the first two batters of the game on eight pitches before getting out of the first inning. “In the second I found myself and then it rained. The wait was too long. I wish I could’ve gone back out there. I thought I was starting to do some good things.”
Manning got himself warm for about 45 minutes. Once the delay progressed past an hour, he knew he was done.
“An hour and a half is too long with Matty, based on his history and based on the back issue he just got over,” Hinch said. “We weren’t going to take any chances.”
Right-handed rookie Mason Englert got the call. He hadn’t pitched in six days and it showed.
He walked No. 9 hitter Trent Grisham, losing a 10-pitch battle. Then with one out, he threw three straight sliders to Fernando Tatis, Jr. The first two were strikes, the third one was slammed into left field for a single.
He threw a first-pitch slider to Juan Soto who lined it to left-center for an RBI double. Then he hung a 1-1 slider to Manny Machado – three-run home run to left.
Game flipped. Irreversibly.
The entire situation put Hinch and the bullpen between a rock and a hard place. Relievers covered four innings on Friday and right-hander Alex Faedo was called up after the game to make a spot start on Sunday. The last thing he needed was to cover seven more innings with relievers on Saturday.
Thus, Hinch had to ride Englert.
“We needed as much as we could get from him,” Hinch said. “We weren’t in a good place if the game changed in a couple of different ways. It was important coming out of the delay to get as much out of Englert as we could but you have to ride a fine line.
“Their offense put up a lot of hits and we’re trying to squeeze as many pitches out as we can. Once you fall behind, it’s even more critical to get deeper in the game and it cost us.”
It might not have mattered who Hinch brought into the game. The Padres never stopped hitting. Soto ended up with three three hits and three RBIs. Tatis had two hits and was on base four times. Luis Campusano had four hits including a three-run home run off Jose Cisnero in the eighth inning. University of Michigan’s Jake Cronenworth had an RBI triple and a single.
Ha-Seong Kim singled twice, walked twice and hit a solo home run off Chasen Shreve in the seventh.
Englert ended up on the hook for nine runs and 10 hits in 2.1 innings. He’s the first Tigers reliever to allow 10 hits in an outing since Greg Gohr did it July 27, 1996.
“That’s a tough lineup to go through and they feast on mistakes,” Hinch said. “It’s a tough assignment to begin with. Execution is super key because that lineup never relents. When they get that momentum, somebody is coming up who can do damage.”
Zack Short pitched the ninth. He posted the first and only zero on the board after the delay.
The Tigers did no more damage against Wolf, who went five innings and earned his first big-league win.
Brendan White was optioned to Toledo after the game to make room for Faedo.
Twitter: @cmccosky