SEATTLE — Reese Olson said he didn’t do much over his All-Star break. He went home to Georgia and saw family, but no great adventures, nothing unusual. On Sunday afternoon, he went back to the mound, took the same steadiness he has shown since his arrival and picked up where he left off for the Tigers.
While Olson ended up shouldering the tough-luck decision in the Tigers’ 2-0 loss to the Mariners, denying Detroit a series sweep at T-Mobile Park, the performance – and the steadiness he continues to show in tough situations – raised spirits that the load management the Tigers exercised with him leading into the break should pay off for the stretch run.
Olson had been limited since the end of June, when a second-inning comebacker off his left knee knocked him out of his start at Texas. His knee was fine, but the Tigers used the occasion to watch him. He piggybacked Tarik Skubal with five scoreless innings and five strikeouts on July 4 against Oakland and then tossed a couple of innings five days later against the Blue Jays.
Aside from a first-pitch slider over the plate to Jarred Kelenic for a first-inning RBI double and a 3-1 fastball that Cal Raleigh dumped into the right-field seats for a fourth-inning solo homer, both with two outs, Olson had much the same nastiness Sunday as he showed upon his arrival last month.
After Kelenic’s double capped an efficient opening inning by Mariners hitters against a pitcher they hadn’t seen in person before, Olson adjusted for a better pitch mix.
“First inning, they came out aggressive,” Olson said. “I wasn’t expecting Kelenic to hit that first-pitch slider, obviously. Just trying to back-door it a little bit. It wasn’t a terrible pitch. He made a good swing.”
Olson’s slider induced nine of his 14 swinging strikes and five of his 11 called strikes, while his 4-seam fastball produced five more whiffs and four more calls.
“It just looked like he made some adjustments, started mixing his pitches a little bit better,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “No margin for error.”
Seattle chased more than half of the sliders Olson threw out of the strike zone — and nearly half the four-seam fastballs he threw. His five changeups essentially functioned as show pitches, including a couple to right-handed hitters, but that also seemed related to the matchup.
“I think commanding my slider in the zone, guys have to respect that,” Olson said. “And when I can spot the four-seam [fastball] up and away to those lefties, that’s when I’m getting swing-and-miss.”
For that reason, the 3-1 fastball to Raleigh might have seemed unusual. However, Olson has remained on the attack when behind in counts since he arrived. He has walked multiple hitters in an outing just once since his callup, and he didn’t walk any Mariners on Sunday. He had just two three-ball counts for the game, with Raleigh’s homer coming right after Olson had gone after Eugenio Suárez with a sinker on the inside edge of the plate with a full count.
“I’m just going to attack like any other at-bat,” Olson said.
All that really kept Olson from what would’ve been the second quality start of his young career was another matchup with Kelenic, whom Olson fanned on a 95 mph fastball his second time up. Despite the bases being empty and Olson coming off a slider to fan Teoscar Hernández to begin the sixth on his 75th pitch of the day, Hinch turned to lefty Chasen Shreve to face Kelenic and finish the inning from there.
“I felt fresh going out there,” Olson said. “Didn’t feel any different going out for the sixth. Felt good.”
In many ways, Olson picked up where Eduardo Rodriguez and Michael Lorenzen left off here, which is saying a lot for a 23-year-old rookie making his sixth Major League start. What seemed likely to be a fill-in stint in the rotation when the Tigers called him up is now essentially his spot for the foreseeable future, at least until Spencer Turnbull potentially returns – and likely longer, assuming Rodriguez and/or Lorenzen are dealt at the Aug. 1 Trade Deadline.
Olson has stepped in where Joey Wentz and Alex Faedo struggled, an impressive feat considering Olson’s 6.38 ERA over 10 starts at Triple-A Toledo before his callup. He’ll get another test next weekend against the struggling but still dangerous Padres at Comerica Park, but he has no plans to change his approach – steady as he goes.