After the Tigers let a perfectly good, exciting, late-innings comeback go to waste on Friday night, they needed to get back in the win column. They had the right man for the job on the mound.
Detroit ace Tarik Skubal got the start, his 27th of the season. Coming into tonight, Skubal led the American League in wins, strikeouts, ERA, and leg kick height (probably). I saw some bozo online the other day making a case for Emmanuel Clase to win the Cy Young, and not Skubal. What a bozo! The internet is full of bozos, man.
Victoria, BC’s own Nick Pivetta made the start for Boston. He’s had an up-and-down season so far — he strikes out a lot and doesn’t give up too many walks, but he does allow a fair amount of hard contact, and has trouble inducing ground balls. That sounds like a recipe for disaster when you’re pitching half your innings at Fenway.
Like they did on Friday night, the visitors took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, via a solo home run by Tyler O’Neil.
Unlike Friday night, the Tigers got that run back and then some in the second: Spencer Torkelson singled to left with one out, the sizzling-hot Zach McKinstry doubled to right, and Trey Sweeney cashed them both in with a double of his own, putting Detroit up 2-1.
The Tigers got another pair of runners on with none out in the fifth, with a Jake Rogers single and a Parker Meadows walk. But a popout, lineout and flyout got Pivetta out of the inning and the mini-threat was all for naught.
Other than the O’Neill home run, Tarik Skubal was in masterful form. He got a little nifty defensive work behind him, but there was little hard contact all night. Fun moment in the sixth inning: for the third out of the top of the frame, Skubal struck out O’Neill for his 200th strikeout of the season. Congrats, Tarik!
This made Skubal the first pitcher to reach that plateau in the majors. Quite a nice little feather in one’s cap, that is.
With two outs in the seventh, Rich Hill came on to pitch for Boston. With his appearance earlier this week, he has now pitched in the past twenty consecutive seasons, the only active player to do so. He threw one pitch, then picked Meadows off first for the third out, the second pickoff in the inning for Boston, from two different relievers no less, after Ryan Kreidler got picked off earlier by Greg Weissert.
Kreidler did make up for being picked off by making a sensational play at third for the first out in the eighth. He ranged deep toward the third base line and got enough on a jump throw to cut down Triston Casas.
Skubal finished the eighth inning with a stellar line: 4 hits, 1 run, no walks and 8 strikeouts. He was visibly pumped closing out two of his final three innings in style with strikeouts, and a pretty good sized crowd was going nuts for him.
Tyler Holton came on for the ninth: he got a lineout, a flyout and then after a walk to O’Neill, he got Rafael Devers to line out softly to shortstop to seal the victory. The Tigers move back over .500 with a 69-68 record headed into the rubber match on Sunday afternoon with the Red Sox.
Bless You, Boys!
The Tigers celebrated the 40th anniversary of the World Series-winning 1984 team with a special ceremony. There were also interviews with Darrell Evans, Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell, Larry Herndon, Lance Parrish, and more throughout the broadcast.
In case you don’t know the back story, in 1983 Al Ackerman, a sports anchor on WDIV-TV in Detroit, would sarcastically and patronizingly say about the team, who’d inevitably disappoint their fans: “Bless you, boys.” The next year the Tigers were historically great and the team adopted the slogan, somewhat ironically; there was even a song recorded. When the founders of this website were trying to figure out what to call it, well, this seemed like a pretty good title for it. And now you know.
Notes and Numbers
- Central Michigan University alumnus Zach McKinstry has been red-hot lately. From August 17 through Friday night’s game, he’s gone 15-for-27 with a home run and a pair of doubles, and scored six runs. Mind you, his Batting Average on Balls in Play (BAbip) has been an insane .636, compared with a league-average .288 or so. But, better lucky than good, right?
- His second-inning double in this game stretched McKinstry’s hitting streak to an even dozen games. Oh, and so far this year he’s stolen 14 bases and hasn’t been thrown out.
- Rich Hill’s major-league debut was on June 15, 2005 for the Cubs against the Marlins. The second batter he faced? Miguel Cabrera, who hit a double to right.
- On this day one hundred years ago, Buddy Hackett was born. If you’ve never seen him in action, go watch clips of him on the Johnny Carson show. He was quick-witted and hilarious, but be careful, his material could get a little blue at times.