After a spotless homestand, the Tigers hit the road and headed to Boston for a four-game wrap-around series against the Red Sox. Sadly, Detroit’s winning streak would end with the opening game of said series, after falling to Boston 1-0 in 10 innings.
Making his fourth start of the season for the Tigers was Casey Mize. His first three starts were good, then bad, then good — thankfully, the pattern wouldn’t repeat on Friday night.
Making his fourth start of the year on the other side was Ranger Suárez. Unlike Mize, two of his starts were lousy, but his most recent effort, in St. Louis, saw him throw six shutout innings and strike out six.
Mize started off great, retiring the first eight batters before Connor Wong hit a deep ground-rule double to right-centre. With Wong on second, though, Mize bore down on Roman Anthony and struck him out on three pitches. In the fourth he plunked Willson Contreras to lead off the inning, and he stayed at first until Trevor Story grounded into a double play to end the frame.
Similarly, Suárez was in control early too: the Tigers got Kevin McGonigle to third in the first inning, but aside from a Dillon Dingler walk, the Tigers couldn’t get a whole lot going against him. Hao-Yu Lee (more on him below) gave a fastball a ride to straightway centre in the fifth, but that was hauled in by Ceddanne Rafaela for the third out.
Rafaela walked with one out in the fifth, and he tried to steal second. Look at this throw. LOOK AT IT.
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Now, I played a little catcher back in the day. I enjoyed it back there: got the best view of the field, involved on every pitch, kind of a unique place in the game. But if I’d made one throw like that in my life to gun out a runner at second, my goodness, I’d never have let my teammates forget about it, ever. And it’s not like that was a high fastball, in which the catcher’s already up out of his crouch as he gears up to throw: it was low, at the batter’s ankles. We’re very, very lucky to have Dingler on our team, folks.
Caleb Durbin doubled to left to lead off the bottom of the sixth for Boston; with one out Anthony flew out to left-centre and Durbin was able to advance to third. But Mize reached back and got Contreras to strike out on an outside fastball and the side was retired.
Mize carried on into the seventh, as he’d only thrown 79 pitches through six innings. He’d get the first two outs of the inning until Jarren Duran legged-out an infield single to Lee at third. Kyle Finnegan took over and Duran took off for second; Dingler would’ve had him but the ball popped out of Gleyber Torres’ glove. But Finnegan got Rafaela to hit a grounder to third, and Spencer Torkelson made a great scoop on an in-between hop at first to get the third out of the inning, and the game remained scoreless.
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Suárez himself carried on into the eighth and he barely broke a sweat, getting a pair of popouts and a strikeout. He finished the inning with 93 pitches; would he be allowed to try to finish the ninth?
Finnegan’s eighth inning featured some nasty sliders and splitters, but with two outs he walked Wong and Brant Hurter was brought in to face Anthony, a left-handed hitter. (Mr. Burns would call this “playing the percentages.”) Anthony hit the ball hard, but Javier Báez tracked it down in centre for the third out, and the game would enter the ninth in a scoreless tie.
But, no, Suárez would not be allowed to start the ninth, as Aroldis Chapman — who, in the past, the Tigers have occasionally gotten-to — took over. Báez singled sharply to right to lead off the inning, the first Detroit hit since the first, but he was thrown out trying to steal second. Torres followed with a one-out walk, and he traded places with Kevin McGonigle at first after he hit a grounder to first. With two out, Jahmai Jones ripped a double to left to put runners on second and third; that short left field probably kept McGonigle at third on the play. That proved crucial as Dingler struck out on three pitches, the last of which was a brutal 101-mph sinker.
Will Vest came on for the bottom of the ninth, and the first pitch he threw to Contreras was hit towards the Pesky Pole in the right-field corner; luckily Wenceel Pérez was ten feet in front of said pole to haul in the fly ball for the first out. After Wilyer Abreu struck out, Lee fielded a tough grounder at third but sailed the throw over Torkelson’s head to put a runner on first. It was all for naught, though, as a more-routine grounder to Lee was fielded cleanly, and the throw to first was much less eventful.
And thus, the first Tigers extra-inning action of the season was about to take place.
Dingler started the tenth on second base, and advanced to third on pinch-hitter Riley Greene’s fly ball to right against Garrett Whitlock. Pérez then struck out for the second out, and Torkelson grounded out to shortstop to strand Dingler.
Duran, a speedy runner, started on second and took third on a ball in the dirt; with that runner on third, AJ Hinch decided to go with a five-infielder look; Vest then struck out Rafaela for the first out. He then walked Marcelo Mayer to bring up pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida, who hit a single to right, scoring Duran and ending the game.
Final score: Red Sox 1, Tigers 0
Notes and Observances
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Tigers prospect Hao-Yu Lee made his major-league debut tonight. (What a place to make a debut!) He was called up from Toledo when Zach McKinstry was placed on the Injured List after a couple of collisions in Wednesday’s game against the Royals resulted in some hip inflammation.
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The Red Sox wore their green City Connect jerseys. They’re better than the old powder blue and yellow ones, but holy mackerel, am I the only one that thinks teams should have exactly two uniforms, one white and one grey? Sheesh.
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One of my favourite podcasts, The Ongoing History of New Music, is in the middle of a five-part documentary series on one-hit wonders of new rock (i.e., alt-rock after the punk explosion of the late ‘70s). I could never recommend this podcast enough, but this series is especially bringing back the big ol’ memories.
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On this day in 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion started in Cuba. That did not turn out particularly well for the US.
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