O, Oakland Coliseum, we hardly knew ye.
…or did we?
Justin Verlander certainly saw plenty of it in 2012 and 2013; consecutive ALDS Game 5 wins there added up to 17 shutout innings, 6 hits, 2 walks and 21 strikeouts. The Tigers also clinched the American League Central in Oakland in 2011.
For those of you who go a little farther back, the 1972 ALCS — a best-of-5 affair back then — had Games 1 and 2 at a Mount Davis-less Coliseum, the home team winning both games before the series shifted to Tiger Stadium and a Game 5 in which Blue Moon Odom got the victory over Woodie Fryman in a 2-1 nailbiter.
(The A’s would go on to win the World Series that year in seven games against the Sparky Anderson-led Big Red Machine.)
Sunday’s game in Oakland was the last for the Tigers as the A’s owner, John Fisher, is (eventually) moving his team to Las Vegas after stopping in Sacramento for a while. It’s a shame what he’s doing, and the fans in Oakland deserve better. Is it too late to sell the team, John?
So, after 57 seasons in the Bay Area, the A’s will be gone, which is sad because the fans there seem fun and kooky and knowledgeable. But, baseball is a business, and you gotta chase them bucks, I suppose. Enjoy the sun-baked plastic grass in Sacramento for a few years.
All that said, the Tigers closed out their final game in Oakland with an easy 9-1 win and inched just that much closer to a Wild Card spot in the playofs.
It was another group-effort day for Tiger pitchers, with Beau Brieske starting for the ninth time and Ty Madden getting the majority of the innings. Brieske’s previous start was 1 ⅓ innings on September 1 against the Red Sox. Madden was slated to take over later in the game, which he did; it was his third appearance for the Tigers, one of which was a traditional start.
Rookie righty JT Ginn — sounds like a good guy to me — got his third major-league start. His numbers at Triple-A Las Vegas didn’t look good, but that’s a tough place (and league) for pitchers, so take his 5.72 ERA with a giant grain of salt. He was drafted out of Mississippi State in 2021 and started in the Mets system, and has never had particularly good-looking stats at any level, to be honest. But his previous outing against Seattle featured six innings of two-run baseball with seven strikeouts, so there might just be something worth investigating here.
Brieske’s control eluded him in the first inning with a pair of one-out walks. But then he struck out Shea Langeliers and Seth Brown and that was the end of Brieske’s day.
The Tigers opened the scoring in the top of the third with Trey Sweeney’s scorching solo home run to right field, which was 109 mph off the bat.
Then, with two outs in the inning, Jace Jung doubled and Riley Greene got plunked on the elbow (he’s fine), and a Kerry Carpenter single scored Jung to put the Tigers up 2-0. They’d have scored more but Tristan Gray at first base made a sensational diving stop on a Colt Keith scorcher for the third out.
Spencer Torkelson singled to lead off the fourth, took second on a Zach McKinstry single, and scored on Sweeney’s single to left for a 3-0 Tiger lead.
Oakland got on the board in the sixth, with a one-out single-double-single combination cutting the lead to 3-1 and leaving runners on the corners with one out. Madden then buckled down and struck out Gray for the second out on a nasty cutter, then followed that up with a beautiful splitter for another swinging third strike, this time victimizing Max Schuemann.
Madden stuck around for one batter in the seventh, surrendering a single to Jacob Wilson and giving way to Tyler “Mr. Reliable” Holton, who needed exactly one (1) pitch to induce a double-play ground ball to second. The book thus closed on Madden, who went 5 innings, gave up 5 hits and one run, walked one and struck out 7 — and that’s a pretty nice line, if you ask me.
The Tigers put runners on the corners with one out in the eighth with singles by Torkelson and Sweeney; Jake Rogers struck out swinging, but Sweeney skooched up to second. Parker Meadows — who else?! — came to the plate and smacked a double to left-centre, driving in two for a 5-1 lead.
The hit parade kept on coming: Matt Vierling doubled, Riley Greene singled, Kerry Carpenter doubled and Colt Keith singled. As Ernie Harwell would’ve observed, “the Tigers are kickin’ up their heels!” When the dust settled it was a six-run inning for Detroit and a 9-1 lead.
In the top of the ninth Sweeney hit an infield single to second base, his fourth hit of the day. With a walk he reached base all five times he came up; not a bad feather in the rookie’s cap. The Tigers ended up loading the bases with two outs, but Ryan Kreidler hit a bullet right at the third baseman for the third out.
Kenta Maeda closed things out with a pair of scoreless innings and the victory, and the series victory, were complete. The Tigers return home for a three-game series against the Rockies, starting on Tuesday: they’re two games above .500 and tied with the Mariners at 3.5 games back of the final Wild Card. There’s still a chance, people!
Box Score: Tigers 9, Athletics 1
Bullet Points o’ Fun
- How fun is Parker Meadows lately? Since his return on August 3 through Saturday he’s been sensational: at the plate he’s slashing .300/.330/.518 for an OPS of .849, and he runs like a gazelle in the outfield and on the bases.
- An underrated statistic, in my opinion, is runs scored. (You can’t win games without scoring runs, after all.) In the 27 games since his return, Meadows has scored 17 runs; that’s a 102-run pace over an entire season, which would be quite an accomplishment.
- This was the Tigers’ last game at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Their first game there ended in a seven-inning 2-2 tie on May 24, 1968 — presumably called due to rain. Earl Wilson started for Detroit, and Bill Freehan and Willie Horton hit back-to-back solo home runs in the second inning off Catfish Hunter to account for all the Tigers’ scoring.
- Is it just me, or are there are a lot of guys named Spencer in the major leagues these days? Spencer Horowitz, a rookie for the Blue Jays, had a heck of a weekend in Atlanta, including a pinch-hit two-run home run today.
- I hear that the National Football League is playing games this week. They look all fancy! They’ve got uniforms and everything. No word yet on whether they’ll play next week too.
- Happy 99th birthday to Peter Sellers… is what we’d say if he hadn’t died in 1980 of a heart attack. Seriously, if you have never seen Dr. Strangelove, cancel all your plans — trust me, that doctor’s appointment can wait two hours! — and go watch it.
- But seriously, go see your doctor. Get that thing checked out.