The second straight thrilling comeback victory in as many days played out on Sunday afternoon in Detroit, as the Tigers downed the Dodgers 5-4. This game had it all: clutch relief innings from a surprising source, late-inning bunts galore, and two consecutive throwing errors from a pitcher wearing grey pants. What a game.
It was a bullpen day for both teams; injuries have ravaged the Dodgers, and Kenta Maeda has ravaged the Tigers (hey-oo, but read on for an interesting development). Beau Brieske got the nod as the opener for the Tigers; he was a full-time starter in 2022, but has spent all of last and this season in the bullpen (with one opener appearance last year). The Dodgers went with Brent Honeywell, a right-handed reliever who they picked up off waivers from Pittsburgh on Saturday; this is his fifth major-league team for the oft injured former top prospect since breaking in with the Rays in 2021.
The Californians got on the board in the first inning, with a wind-blown Will Smith double eluding both Colt Keith and Wenceel Pérez, followed an out later by a Teoscar Hernández double to put the visitors up 1-0. Andy Pages (“PA-hez”) then hit a single to centre to plate Hernández for a 2-0 tally; an error then put runners on the corners with two outs. The runner on first, Miguel Rojas, took off for second on a steal attempt; Carson Kelly threw to second, Rojas induced a rundown, and enough time elapsed to allow Pages to score before the tag was made. Not great.
Tyler Holton took over in the second and had a delightfully boring inning, and gave up a hit in the third without any further incident. Meanwhile, Honeywell mowed through the Tigers’ order the first time around, and featured a screwball from time to time, which is new (but also old). Ryan Vilade, the nine-hole hitter, got the first hit of the game for the home side in the third.
In the fourth, Maeda made his first relief appearance for the Tigers after being removed from the rotation earlier in the week… and he wasn’t bad! His first inning went 1-2-3 and he was hitting 94 mph on his fastball, which is easily the hardest he’s thrown in a while.
Colt Keith and Matt Vierling greeted the new Dodgers pitcher, Ryan Yarbrough, with a single and a double respectively in the bottom of the fourth. A one-out walk loaded the bases for Saturday’s tenth-inning hero, Gio Urshela, who hit a long flyout to centre to drive in Keith and narrow the lead to 3-1.
Maeda carried on into the fifth, and Shohei Ohtani hit a sizzler for a single. However, a pair of pitches later, Ohtani was gunned-out for only the third time this season trying to steal and that was that.
As an aside…
Sure, Shohei Ohtani is an excellent hitter — and, when he’s healthy, an excellent pitcher. We’ve never seen anything like him and probably never will again, so enjoy him while you can. But I think something that gets overlooked is how darn fast he is: he stole 26 bases in 2021, and has already stolen 23 bases this year. He gets down the first-base line remarkably quickly, too. How often does a flat-out slugger steal bases, anyway? Ohtani is on pace for a 40-40 season. Bananas. Anyway, back to the game.
In the fifth the Tigers started with a pair of singles, and had runners on the corners with one out, but were unfortunately unable to capitalize on the situation. Maeda continued to sizzle in his relief appearance, though: his splitter had tons of late movement, and was set up perfectly by his amped-up fastball.
With one out in the bottom of the sixth, the Tigers had runners on the corners; Zach McKinstry hit a fielder’s choice grounder to shortstop that allowed Riley Greene to score from third to narrow the gap to 3-2. McKinstry stole second and Andy Ibáñez walked, and could the Tigers squeeze even more juice out of the inning? Alas, Vilade struck out swinging on some high heat and the threat was extinguished.
With two outs in the seventh, Maeda was pulled from the game to a rousing standing ovation. His final line in relief: 3 ⅔ innings, one hit, five strikeouts, no walks, and if you were able to predict that… well, friend, you’re a better predictor than I. Andrew Chafin was summoned to dispatch the next batsman, which he did.
In the bottom of the eighth Greene squeezed a single into right field to lead things off, but Kelly hit a hard grounder to third to start an around-the-horn double play. Urshela followed with a strikeout and the stadium deflated a little.
Jason Foley came on for the ninth and had a little trouble with his control, walking a pair and handing a two-out, runners-on-the-corners situation to Alex Faedo. He walked Gavin Lux to load the bases, then went 3-0 on Chris Taylor before striking him out swinging on a slider. (Look, Alex, we like a little drama when we’re watching The Crown, but not in our ninth innings.)
The bottom of the ninth followed, as it does, and McKinstry motored around the bases for a leadoff triple, putting the tying run on third with none out; pinch-hitter Justyn-Henry Malloy brought McKinstry home with a single to centre to tie the game at three. Vilade followed with a bunt with funky spin on it, and pitcher Yohan Ramírez flubbed the fielding attempt to push Malloy up to second.
And, if you like bunts, you’ll love what happened next: Pérez put down a good one with runners on first and second, Ramírez picked it up and threw wildly to third to try to get the lead runner. But the throw sailed into left field, Malloy raced around to score the winning run, and the Tigers took the three-game series, two games to one.
A second straight comeback win against a tough Dodgers team, going into the All-Star Break? Ya gotta love it.
Box Score: Tigers 4, Dodgers 3
Notes and Numbers
- Much has been made of how hot Colt Keith is lately, and since it makes me feel good, I’m going to add to that. From June 12 through yesterday (roughly one month), in 111 plate appearances (101 AB), he’s batting .327 with an OPS of 1.001, hit seven home runs, four doubles and two triples.
- His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BAbip), which can measure how lucky a hitter is, has been a sky-high .361 over that stretch; league-average is around .290. So, has he been lucky? Yes, he has… but remember that wretched April he had, in which he stung the ball but it always seemed to be right at someone? You guessed it, his BAbip for April was a meagre .192, meaning he was very unlucky. I guess things have a way of evening-out.
- This was Negro Leagues Weekend in Detroit… but, apparently, the new uniform deal with Nike prevented the Tigers from actually donning those dapper duds as they always have. (Seriously, if the Tigers ever had to ditch the Olde English “D”, that Stars uniform would fill in quite nicely.)
- Happy 162nd birthday to Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. There’s a decent chance you’ve seen (or owned a print of) The Kiss, which has gold foil as an important part of the painting. Many years ago I saw his Beethoven Frieze in Vienna, and even though I’m not the biggest aficionado of art, I could’ve stared at that thing all day.