Alex Faedo dazzles to help Detroit Tigers salvage 3-1 win over San Diego Padres

The Detroit Tigers had limped into their series finale against San Diego with only a faint chance of salvaging much from a series that was already lost.

The Padres spent the previous night bludgeoning them, pounding away at a bullpen that collapsed in an 11-run defeat.

Now, they were sending Alex Faedo to the mound.

Faedo’s return Sunday to the Tigers at Comerica Park, following an injury to his right finger and a subsequent rehab stint in the minors, had been met with tepid enthusiasm. Most of the 27-year-old’s time in the big leagues, after all, has been marked by failure. Before Sunday, he was saddled with a 2-9 record and his stat line was stained with a unsightly 6.05 ERA.

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It seemed improbable, even slightly outlandish, to believe he could corral a powerful batting order littered with recognizable last names like Machado, Soto, Bogaerts and Tatis.

As Faedo conceded, it was a treacherous undertaking.

“With a lineup like that, 1 through 9, are all guys who can not only hit it out of the yard and put in the gap,” he said., “but also do everything with the stick.”

But Faedo also knows baseball can be funny and surprising, too.

Common sense doesn’t always prevail. It explains why the Padres, with their well-stocked roster and bounty of big names, have spent much of this season masquerading as a bad club. Their struggles, and their below-.500 winning percentage, are rather mystifying considering their talent and lofty expectations.

The Tigers’ problems, their subpar record, their ebbs that outnumber their flows, are much more understandable. They are a flawed team and rarely reveal themselves as anything but one.

Yet on this afternoon, it all came together in a 3-1 victory marked by Faedo’s solid outing.

Despite Faedo conceding no runs and one hit in six innings, his performance was marked by few masterful strokes. What it did feature, however, was plenty of timely execution and some defensive support. It allowed him to stay unscathed as he struggled to maintain a low economy of pitches. Although it wasn’t quite a Houdini act, Faedo consistently wiggled his way out of danger after tempting fate with leadoff walks in the first, third and sixth innings. Those free passes tend to be the worst kinds, the catalysts of big rallies for opportunistic hitters and short outings for the pitchers who issue them. But Faedo was able to avoid the worst repercussions, inducing double plays in each instance that stopped the Padres.

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“After a few misfires here and there,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said, “he got some really big outs. … Today was an example of Alex controlling what he can, throwing his strikes when he fell behind, trying to get back in the count and when he walked a guy to try to get the ball on the ground.”

With his shaky command, Faedo would give the Padres a chance at a breakthrough, then yank it away in an instant.

It must have been terribly vexing for San Diego (48-52) during a year when these aggravating outcomes have accumulated.

The Tigers (45-54) could empathize after all they’ve been through these past four months.

But on this day, they showed little mercy, plunging the knife into the Padres’ backs in the first inning and twisting it further as the game progressed.

Spencer Torkelson’s solo blast into the left field seats in the first inning against Joe Musgrove staked the Tigers to a lead they would never relinquish.

Torkelson’s home run preceded another off the bat of Andy Ibáñez in the third inning, when he turned on an 88 mph cutter that didn’t slice through the strike zone nearly enough. The ball carried deep into the stands, beyond the location where Torkelson’s shot had landed. Ibáñez circled the bases and raised his fist in the air, as if he was asking his teammates to follow his lead. They obliged shortly thereafter by staging a two-out rally punctuated by Kerry Carpenter’s RBI single that ushered home Riley Greene to give the Tigers a 3-0 advantage.

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The output was enough to support a quality starter. But Faedo?

Even as he killed off one potential threat after another, there were doubts about whether he could protect the lead before handing the ball to the bullpen. Faedo proved the skepticism wasn’t warranted, when he delivered the 88th offering in a 93-pitch battle. Fernando Tatis Jr. slapped Faedo’s dipping slider on the ground, setting in motion yet another double play. One batter later, Faedo’s work was done.

“For a younger guy to come up and deal with that lineup, those kind of names. … I thought he showed a lot of maturity,” catcher Eric Haase said.

Better yet, he did enough to position the Tigers for the victory. Three innings later, that win was sealed as the Tigers, like Faedo, dodged potential trouble. The fraught, tense top half of the ninth started after the skies opened and an ominous gray blanket settled over Comerica Park. The Padres had advanced the tying runs in scoring position, as a two-out walk to Xander Bogaerts, an error by Javier Báez and a wild pitch by Alex Lange led to a frantic finish.

With a nervous crowd on its feet in anticipation of what was next — doom or delirium — Lange caught his breath and coaxed Gary Sanchez to fly out. It was a bizarre, unexpected denouement. But then again it’s baseball, which explains it all.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin.