Twins 5, Tigers 0: Hope you didn’t take the Ober

The finale and rubber match of the weekend three-game series against the Twins in Detroit featured a dominant pitching performance by the visitors and a 5-0 loss on a warm Sunday afternoon. But let’s blame the home plate umpire because his calls were routinely pretty lousy.

It was another bullpen day for the Tigers, and Alex Faedo got things started. He’s been mostly okay as multi-inning option out of the bullpen, but his 3.47 ERA vs. his 4.65 FIP suggests he’s been a little lucky. His walks have been up a tick since last year (when he was mostly a starter), and he’s had a couple of shaky outings since spending a good part of June on the IL with a problem with his right hip. But he threw a couple of nice innings a few days ago in Cleveland, so maybe he’d be alright today for a while.

Countering for the Minnesotans was Bailey Ober, the big right-hander (see below) who’s had a solid year so far. He’ll typically give you six or seven innings, allow a couple of runs, and strike out about a batter an inning. He usually won’t dominate a team, but he probably won’t let things get completely out of hand for your team either.

Also… BáezWatch 2024 was on, in full force: could he make it four straight games with a home run? He was batting ninth in the starting lineup again, so he had a shot.

Faedo got into some trouble in the first with a single and a hit batter, but he bore down and struck out the next three to escape without any damage. Faedo’s day ended after a leadoff single in the second, with Easton Lucas taking over, giving up the first run of the game on a sacrifice fly a couple of batters later.

Lucas carried on into the third, giving way to Kenta Maeda with none out and runners on the corners. Another sacrifice fly pushed the Twins’ lead to 2-0, but an extremely generous strike-three call on Max Kepler got the Tigers out of any further trouble.

The Tigers got their first baserunner in the form of Matt Vierling leading off the fourth, but he was erased on a double play. They just could not get things cooking against Ober in any way, and they were completely flummoxed by his changeup. Meanwhile, Maeda just kinda kept on rolling for a while, too, eventually getting his splitter working well.

Javier Báez… well, in the sixth, he hadn’t hit a home run yet, but he was getting hosed on some strike calls. Pitch #1 was a called strike (?!), pitch #2 was a more reasonable called strike, and of course pitch #3 was a slider at which Báez swung and missed. But still, come on, don’t mess with our hottest hitter like this, Blue — and this was far from the worst miss of the day.

A bit more hard contact emerged against Maeda in the seventh, with a single and a double pushing the Minnesotans’ lead to 3-0. But he ended up giving the Tigers a boat-load of quality innings today: 5 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K (although he did allow one inherited runner to score). Dare I ask if it’s time to move Maeda back into a starting role, especially given how thin the Tigers are in that department these days?

This game was pretty devoid of home-team highlights, so here’s a nice catch by Ryan Vilade.

Shelby Miller took over and had a nicely uneventful eighth. Jason Foley came on for the ninth and promptly gave up a single and a walk, and a double scored another run for a 4-0 lead. Andrew Chafin was brought in to clean up the mess, but an intentional walk to load the bases with none out backfired as a blooper to left made it 5-0. However, Chafin buckled down and struck out the next three batters to keep the score reasonable.

The Tigers went down meekly in the ninth and, if you’re keeping score at home, which you’re probably not, the Tigers got exactly one (1) hit all day. You won’t win many games that way, friends. And, obviously, that one hit was not a Báez home run, as he finished the day 0-for-3 with two strikeouts.

Box Score: Twins 5, Tigers 0

I mean, that’s one way to rank teams

Ober’s 6’ 9” (206 cm), so that tracks.

Numbers and Whatnots

• Colt Keith’s July coming into today: 87 plate appearances, 7 home runs, .347 batting average, 1.157 OPS. I can dig it.
• The Twins’ second baseman today, Austin Martin, always makes me think of Aston Martin, the British car company. That’s all. Nothing highfalutin’ here, folks.
• This game may have been a stinker, but at least the White Sox have lost 13 in a row. That makes me feel better. Maybe the Germans have a word for this feeling, we’ll see.
• Today would have been Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright’s 81st birthday. If you think that Pink Floyd’s brand of art-prog rock was a little too snooty, a little too full of itself and extremely self-indulgent… well, you’re absolutely correct on all counts, but that’s why I love ‘em. Listen to their Animals album and try not to get lost.