The Tigers continued their string of games against National League Central opponents on Friday night, in the opener of a three-game series against the Reds on the banks of the Ohio River. There was a big early lead which evaporated, and then a nice comeback for a late lead, but one final home run doomed the Detroiters in a 9-8 walk-off loss.
Making his sixth start of the season for the Detroiters was Framber Valdez. He was coming off a very solid six-inning outing in Boston in which he gave up one run, walked two and struck out seven. It took me a long time to find strikeout percentage — eventually I found it buried deep in Advanced Pitching on Baseball Reference — and his is quite a bit below his career average so far this year. For his career, his strikeout percentage is 23.3% (MLB average has been 22.7% over that time); in 2026, in the small sample we have, it’s been 15.8%.
Andrew Abbott started for the Reds, and his season so far hasn’t been great: his ERA coming into tonight was 5.84 (although his FIP was only 4.32, so he’s been a bit unlucky). But if you’re surrendering four walks and over eleven hits per nine innings, you’re going to have a lot of traffic on the basepaths, and that usually doesn’t help you win too many ball games. A stat in Abbott’s favour, though, is that he’s generally limited hard contact, and that’s a very important stat at Riverfront Stadium Great American Ball Park.
Well, that wasn’t of much use in the second inning when he hung a sweeping breaking ball right into the path of Riley Greene’s bat; he proceeded to clobber that thing into the right-centrefield stands for a 1-0 lead.
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A walk and an infield single off Javier Báez’s glove started the bottom of the second, and a double steal pushed the runners up to second and third with one out. But Valdez bore down and struck out the next two hitters, stranding the runners and getting out of the jam.
Báez led off the bottom of the third and refused to be excluded from the home run party, clubbing a fat 3-0 fastball to centre for a 2-0 lead. With one out, Gleyber Torres walked, Kevin McGonigle singled, and a Matt Vierling double plated both runners for a 4-0 Tiger lead.
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Valdez, meanwhile, was looking good early on — he kept righties off-kilter with plenty of changeups and curveballs. He got into a bit of trouble in the bottom of the third by walking a pair of hitters with two outs. But then Sal Stewart, who’s having a sensational rookie year so far, spanked a scorching liner deep to left field — but Greene made a fine running catch for the third out.
In the fourth the Tigers just kept coming: Spencer Torkelson doubled to lead off, and then with two outs Jahmai Jones, getting a start against a lefty, singled up the middle, scoring Torkelson and making the lead 5-0… which would not hold up, as it turns out.
Kyle Nicolas, a childhood friend of Dillon Dingler, relieved Abbott to start the fifth and he had trouble finding the plate, walking the first two batters he’d face, Torres and McGonigle. Vierling flew out but advanced Torres to third, and Dingler came up to face a guy he grew up with. The battle reached nine pitches, but on that ninth pitch Dingler hit a comebacker to Nicolas to start an inning-ending 1-4-3 double play.
The walks kept coming for Valdez in the fifth, and with one out he walked Dane Myers. That was a bad idea, as Matt McLain then hit a home run to cut the lead to 5-2. After Elly De La Cruz singled, AJ Hinch had seen enough and Kyle Finnegan was brought in. On the first pitch Dingler made a great throw to nab De La Cruz stealing, which certainly helped, and Stewart struck out, which helped even more as it was the third out.
Valdez’s final line: 4 1/3 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 4 K. Not great, Bob.
The Tigers loaded the bases with none out in the sixth via a Greene single, a Torkelson walk and a Colt Keith single. Nicolas departed in favour of Pierce Johnson, and Báez hit a grounder to shortstop. De La Cruz came home to get the lead runner, and catcher Tyler Stephenson threw to first but upon review Báez narrowly beat out the throw to first to get out of a double play and keep the bases loaded. However, Kerry Carpenter, pinch-hitting for Jones, hit a liner right at De La Cruz who snared it and doubled-off Keith to end the inning.
That’s a squander, right there. If the Tigers had scored — as one would expect in a bases-loaded, none-out situation — that would likely have changed the outcome of the game.
The Reds further narrowed the Tigers’ lead with one out in the sixth, as Finnegan served up a fat splitter that Nathaniel Lowe launched almost 440 feet (134 m) into the stands to make it 5-3. Rece Hinds doubled down the right-field line with two out as the heavy rain started, but Finnegan struck out Ke’Bryan Hayes looking for the third out of the inning to limit the damage.
A cursory glance at the weather radar didn’t offer a lot of hope for a quick resolution to this precipitation conundrum. But after almost two hours the rain had stopped and the field was suitably prepared, and play resumed at the start of the seventh inning. Brock Burke took over on the mound for the Reds, and he plunked McGonigle on the right hand; he stayed in the game and then swiped second base. But a Dingler groundout ended the inning and it was all for naught.
Will Vest took over for Finnegan after the delay and it did not go well: a four-pitch walk and another two-run home run by McLain tied the game at 5; yep, that comfortable lead was gone. After getting two outs but surrendering a double, Brant Hurter was brought in to face a lefty, and a routine grounder to Báez (now at second base) resulted in the ball being thrown away and the run scoring from second. Another double scored another run and it was 7-5 for the Reds.
Torkelson took matters into his own hands in the eighth, as he turned around a belt-high fastball for a solo home run — his third in three days — to narrow the gap to 7-6. Then, Keith lined a single and Carpenter sat on a fastball and blasted it over the right-field fence to retake the lead 8-7.
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Drew Anderson was brought in for the bottom of the eighth; which version of Anderson would we see? Well, it was the version that got two strikeouts and a harmless fly ball, which I’ll definitely take any day.
Graham Ashcraft, who obviously made me think of Richard Ashcroft and how good The Verve’s Urban Hymns is, came on for the ninth and nothing particularly of note happened.
That brought Kenley Jansen into the game, who needed 36 pitches to lock down the win against Milwaukee on Wednesday. After a flyout and a strikeout, Spencer Steer poked a single into right field to put the tying run on base. That would prove to be fateful, as Jansen left an 0-1 sinker middle up right in the meatball zone. Lowe launched his second home run of the night deep into a misty Ohio night, sealing the victory for the home team.
Final score: Reds 9, Tigers 8
Numbers and Such
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Jahmai Jones went 0-for-10 to start his season; mind you, he wasn’t getting many opportunities as the Tigers didn’t face too many left-handed pitchers.
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Since that slow start, coming into tonight, he’s been 6-for-15 with a pair of home runs, including the tying solo home run against the Brewers on Thursday afternoon — but not including the RBI single in the fifth.
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There were plenty of Tiger fans in attendance at the stadium on the riverfront, and could be easily heard on the broadcast.
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Jon Bois has a new weird series about charging the mound. If I were you, I’d make some time for this.
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On this day in 1916 the Easter Rising began in Dublin, Ireland as a rebellion against British rule. It was the first real step towards Irish independence, which was declared in 1918 after Sinn Féin won the first real elections in the country.
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