Tigers 8, Red Sox 4 (F/10): It all started with a dribbler to third

Seeking a split in a four-game extended weekend series in Boston with the Red Sox, the Tigers needed an extra inning and (mostly) solid relief pitching to secure the 8-4 win on Sunday afternoon.

Making his eleventh start for the Tigers this year was Casey Mize. Since missing most of 2022 and all of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery, he’s been pretty up-and-down. For his two starts before today he’s been bashed-around a bit: in Kansas City on May 21 he didn’t make it out of the second inning, and last weekend’s crazy-pants game against the Blue Jays he didn’t finish the fifth. The bullpen has been under a heavy workload recently, so being able to go a deeper into this game would be crucial before the Tigers head down to Texas for their series this upcoming week.

Brayan Bello (pronounced BAY-o) took the hill for the Boston ball club. He had a 6-2 won-loss record coming into today, but that’s a little deceiving: his ERA was 4.18 and his FIP was 4.63, and he’s been getting a ton of run support. (Eat your heart out, Reese Olson.) This is his second full season with Boston, and since last year he’s decreased his WHIP by a bit, increased his strikeouts a touch, and brought the number of hits per nine innings down. But, like Tanner Houck on Friday night, the secret to his success is getting hitters to bash the ball into the ground.

The Tigers put the first two batters to start the game with a single off the shortstop’s glove and a walk. After a flyout and a groundout there were runners on the corners with two outs, but a hard Colt Keith comebacker snagged by Bello ended the threat.

Boston had a pair of runners on with two outs as well, but an Emmanuel Valdez single to centre pushed a run across. A strikeout of Garrett Cooper got him out of the inning without any further damage. The next inning also saw a two-out run: a soft ground ball to Keith at second was thrown away, allowing David Hamilton to get to second. The next batter, Jarren Duran, hit a single to centre to score Hamilton and push Boston’s lead to 2-0.

Mize clearly did not have his best stuff: anything designed to break was going all over the place, which basically left him with only a fastball that he could control. A third-inning walk and a triple made it 3-0, and you had to wonder how long he’d be able to go in this one. But he struck out Reese McGuire to end the third, then the first two of the fourth before walking Duran; Carson Kelly cut down Duran trying to steal for the third out, though.

The Tigers got a run back in the fifth: Gio Urshela led off with a double and was pushed up to third by an Akil Baddoo single. A wild pitch scored Urshela and moved Baddoo to second, and an infield single by Kelly brought him to third with one out, but a lineout and a groundout stranded him there and the score remained at 3-1.

Tyler Holton took over for Mize in the fifth; his final line was 4 IP, 5 H, 3 R (2 ER), 4 BB, 4 K. While those numbers don’t look great — and they aren’t — he did settle down and give the Tigers an inning more than I initially thought he would. Holton had a brisk fifth, and you had to hope he’d go at least a couple of innings in this one.

In the top of the sixth a Wenceel Pérez single and a Mark Canha walk put two runners on, and a Keith groundout moved them up to second and third with one out. Urshela hit a soft fly ball to centre which was caught, and Pérez made a great slide to score a run to close the gap to 3-2.

Baddoo got the ol’ unintentional-intentional walk, and Canha stole third to put runners on the corners, but Javier Báez hit a grounder to end the inning and the threat.

Matt Vierling hit an infield single with one out in the seventh, and Riley Greene punched a single through the left side to put two runners on yet again. That ended Bello’s day, and Pérez doubled to centre to score Vierling, advance Greene to third, and tie the game at 3. Canha hit a grounder to shortstop; Greene deftly broke home on the play and the Boston shortstop judged that his best bet was to get the out at first, putting the Tigers up 4-3 for their first lead in a long time.

Holton, who’d had a quiet second inning of work, carried on and got the first out of the seventh: he went seven-up, seven-down, and my goodness, what a crucial relief appearance to settle things for Detroit. Alex Faedo relieved Holton and got a flyout, and after a single, Urshela made a nice play at first on a hard grounder to end the inning.

However, Rafael Devers re-tied the score in the bottom of the eighth with a fly ball over the Monster in deep left-centre for a solo home run. Jason Foley came on with two outs, threw one pitch, got one out, and it was on to the ninth.

Greene got a two out-single in the top of the ninth against Kenley Jansen and stole second uncontested, but a Pérez flyout ended the inning.

So, on to the bottom of the ninth: Foley got another first-pitch flyout, and a great scoop-and-throw by Vierling on a ground ball got the second out. After a Rob Refsnyder single, Andrew Chafin was brought in to face a lefty.

“Relax, guy — Chafin’s a veteran. He’s got this. And he’s left-handed. That’s what you call ‘playing the splits.’”

“But Chafin’s been struggling lately! You want to bring him into a tie game, where one swing of the bat could end it?!”

“Who cares? Noam Chomsky suggests all sports are merely a diversionary tactic to distract people from thinking about real issues.”

“I bet you’re a lot of fun at parties.”

Well… Chafin walked Duran, the lefty, on four low pitches, pushing Refsnyder to second. Jamie Westbrook, a right-handed hitter making his major-league debut after eleven years in the minors, was brought in to pinch-hit with the game on the line. Westbrook walked, as Chafin was unable to find the plate with both hands and a map, loading the bases for the dangerous Connor Wong (another righty). Then…

See? Chafin had it all along. On to extras.

Pérez was the Manfred Man in the tenth, and Canha hit a dribbler to third base; upon review Canha was judged to be safe on an extremely close play, safe by maybe a quarter of an inch (roughly 8 mm), putting runners on the corners. Andy Ibáñez was brought in to pinch-hit for Keith and he smashed a grounder down the third-base line for a double to score Pérez to put the Tigers up 5-4.

Urshela lined out sharply to short, and Jake Rogers, pinch-hitting for Baddoo, also hit a hard liner to short that popped out of the shortstop’s glove, so the shortstop, Ceddanne Rafaela, had to throw to first to complete the out. Báez then sent a sizzler through the left side to score Canha and Ibáñez, making it a 7-4 game. Kelly followed with a double off the Monster to score Báez from first for an 8-4 lead. A long Vierling flyout ended the inning, but it was awfully nice to get that four-run insurance-cushion.

Chafin continued on into the tenth: strikeout, groundout, strikeout, GAME. See? Nails.

This one had a little something for everyone, that’s for sure. Series split achieved, and on to Texas.

Box Score: Tigers 8, Red Sox 4

Ay, dios mío.

*pinches bridge of nose and sighs*

Well, at least he got a nice hit in extra innings.

Stats and Observations

• Detroit is Gio Urshela’s sixth major-league team; this is the ninth season in which he’s seen big-league action. The longest he’s spent with any one team is three years with the Yankees. That’s… curious.
• From May 20 through June 1, in 40 plate appearances, Spencer Torkelson was 3-for-37 with 13 strikeouts. All three of those hits came in the 14-11 win against Toronto.
• Coming into today, for 2024, Casey Mize’s splits against lefty vs. righty batters are interesting. Right-handed batters (115 PA) were hitting .366 with a .901 OPS; left-handed batters (105 PA) were hitting .192 with a .575 OPS… hence why there were seven lefties in Boston’s starting lineup.
• Tyler Holton’s middle name is Tyler. His first name is Weston. That doesn’t mean anything, but hey, there ya go.
• Ceddanne Rafaela’s first middle name (of three): Chipper.
• I’ve had Gatorade four times in my life, including today. I’ve been underwhelmed by it every time.
• Fourteen years ago was Armando Galarraga’s perfect-game-that-wasn’t. Look, I know this one still stings, but honestly, the way that Galarraga and first-base umpire Jim Joyce handled this afterwards, I feel like this almost turned out better than if that 27th-out call had gone properly. If you can watch the footage of the next game’s pre-game ritual of exchanging the lineup cards without getting misty — Joyce had rotated to home plate for that game, Galarraga brought out Detroit’s lineup, and Joyce was in tears — then you may just be a serial killer. Galarraga, of course, has been noted for his exemplary grace and humility in the face of such an egregious and impactful errant call; if it wasn’t for this whole situation, would we have known how good a human he was?