On their relentless march towards the playoffs on Wednesday night, the Tigers got on the board early, kept adding insurance, and we got a brief glimpse of the future amidst a 7-1 win that clinched the three-game series against the Rays.
Rookie Keider Montero made the start for the Tigers, his 16th start and 18th appearance overall. We know about his complete-game shutout of the Rockies a couple of weeks ago, but his most recent appearance was after an opener in the Baltimore away-series, and he got into quite a bit of trouble by giving up four home runs in 4 ⅔ innings.
Zack Littell started for the Rays, coming off a sensational 7-inning, one-hit outing against the Red Sox last week. He’s been kicking around since 2018, starting off in the bullpen in Minnesota, then converting to a full-time starter this year in Tampa and/or St. Petersburg. He’s had a solid season — the stats aren’t spectacular overall, but he generally keeps his team in the game by limiting walks and home runs. He’s a bit of a fly-ball pitcher; would this work to his advantage at cavernous Comerica National Park?
Montero got into trouble in the first with a walk and a single, so runners were on first and second with two out. He got Jonny DeLuca to fly out to the warning track in right, but he wasn’t looking too good: 25 pitches to get through the first, with only 13 strikes among ‘em.
Parker Meadows got things going on the second pitch of the bottom of the inning, and so much for Comerica being big, I guess:
After two very sharply-struck lineouts Riley Greene spanked a double to right, and Wenceel Pérez followed with a double of his own, pushing the lead to 2-0.
Montero got into more trouble in the second, with a pair of singles and a walk loading the bases with two outs. Chris Fetter came out to have a chat, and Montero coaxed a grounder to first out of Brandon Lowe to end the threat. You had to wonder how long AJ Hinch would go with Montero, if he needed this boatload of pitches to get through two.
Junior Caminero, whose name reminds me of this Simpsons gag, got a run back in the top of the third with a long solo home run over the visting bullpen to make it 2-1. With two outs and Hinch treating this like a playoff game, Montero was dispatched in favour of Sean Guenther, who’s been mostly lights-out so far; he struck out Josh Lowe on three pitches.
The Tigers got that run back in the third: Meadows and Vierling singled to put two runners on with one out, and Greene singled to bring in Meadows for a 3-1 lead.
Perez made a great leaping grab in the fourth in right-centre. I mean, maybe he took a bad route, but it looked nice in the end:
Guenther lasted six batters — all of whom he retired, three on strikes — and Brenan Hanifee was summoned to get the final out of the fifth, which he did on a groundout to short.
Littell lasted until two outs in the fifth, and gave way to the delightfully-named lefty Richard Lovelady with a runner on first and Greene at the plate. The matchup worked, Greene grounded out, and the side was retired.
With two outs and runners on first and second in the sixth, Tyler Holton came on and struck out a right-handed pinch hitter to end the threat. My goodness, Tyler. You rock something fierce.
Spencer Torkelson, who’d been battling good pitches all night, opened up a can of somethin’ in the sixth and launched a TorkBomb™ 415 ft (126 m) to left for a 5-1 lead.
Dillon Dingler and Meadows kept the line moving with two-out singles to put runners on the corners, but Kerry Carpenter flew out to right and that ended the inning.
With JobeWatch ‘24 on high alert, Jackson Jobe was seen warming up in the bullpen in the seventh… but instead we got Will Vest to pitch the eighth. He gave up a single, and Riley Greene made a lovely catch in left for the third out:
Torkelson was at it again in the bottom of the inning: after a pinch-hit Zack McKinstry single, he jumped all over a first-pitch sinker for a double down the left-field line and McKinstry came all the way around to score, making it 6-1. At that point Jason Foley, who’d been warming in the bullpen, sat down and Jobe got back up; Dingler then kept the party going with a single, scoring Torkelson, for a 7-1 lead.
And then…
Jobe got to start a clean ninth inning with a six-run lead. He featured a four-seamer, cutter and a changeup at “only” 87 mph; he got the first batter to ground out, gave up a single, got a forceout and a flyout, and that was it. Not too shabby in the middle of a playoff run.
The series finale is Thursday afternoon at 1:10 pm EDT. Let’s continue that intense scoreboard-watching, everyone!
I’ll just leave this right here
Notes and Numbers
- A lot has been made of the Tigers’ resurgence and the return of Kerry Carpenter from the IL in mid-August. In 33 games (30 starts, 119 plate appearances) coming into tonight he’s been great: a slash-line of .279 BA/.356 OBP/.623 SLG for an OPS of .979. I can dig it.
- He’s still striking out a lot, though… in those 119 plate appearances he struck out 34 times. But hey, if you strike out, you’re not grounding into a double play, right?
- With the hurricane dumping a lot of rain on Florida and the rest of the US southeast, there may be some scheduling havoc coming up with implications for the Wild Card race: the Royals are scheduled to play in Atlanta this weekend. If that’s a slow-moving storm, we could be looking at a doubleheader for Monday, or maybe just moving the whole series to a neutral site. Keep an eye on this.
- On this day in 1974, Dr. Frank Jobe performed the first ulnar colateral ligament replacement surgery on pitcher Tommy John; a tendon is harvested from another place in the body and stitched-in to replace the UCL. If you want a giggle, take a look at John’s Baseball-Reference page to see why he missed the 1975 season.
- We don’t know if Dr. Jobe is any relation to Jackson. We’ll get our research team on it, if we can find them.