Reaction: The Detroit Tigers just hit a new low | Tiger Territory

Reaction: The Detroit Tigers just hit a new low | Tiger Territory

and welcome in to another episode of Tiger Territory part of the F territory network a Detroit Tigers podcast. I’m Kieran Steel with me as always the man who right now has to determine whether he believes in curses. He is Cody Steenhagen. How you doing Kieran? I don’t know what cursed the Tigers but I think something did. I’m going to go with I believe in I believe in curses because this is unfathomable. This is unconscionable. This is This is hard to wrap my head around. It’s more than just playing bad baseball. It’s more than having a flawed roster construction. It’s making me wonder um did something go on behind the scenes with these guys? Do we have our own chicken and beer situation or something like that? I’ve not gotten a whiff of anything like that, but um it’s making you wonder if something more fundamentally, you know, is is broken with this team because it’s been everything that can go wrong. They can’t snap out of it. And tonight, you had your guy, your horse on the mound, and he was pitching well. You weren’t really having very good at bats, but even you even got yourself a little two-run lead. And then the sixth inning, maybe the strangest inning of baseball I have ever seen that spiraled into just complete disaster for the Detroit Tigers. Yeah, I mean there’s obviously a lot for one game. There’s obviously a lot of directions that we can go here, but let’s just let’s just go straight into the sixth inning. And I’m just going to read the playbyplay because it’s it’s remarkable. So Quan, who by the way, my wife has grown to sports hate heavily. Uh Qu I I hate him right after he made that catch the first on Parker Meadows uh flyyou. Uh Quan, you know, bunt single. Okay. Then Martinez tries to sacrifice and that ends up being being a essentially a double for him because Terrick Scubel does the unfathomable move of trying to hike the ball between his legs and that goes over Torlson’s head who furl Toruson’s faults. Him not being 8 feet tall is not something that we can blame him for. And so that was not on torque. That’s not going to go against his abs average. Uh you got runners on second and third with no outs and you’re like okay I mean if there’s anyone that can kind of maybe try to get through this is Scooble but then it’s Jose Ramirez at the plate and he jams him and McKinstry charges in and there’s no play. So you get a runner there and and then you have the David Fry situation which I obviously we both hope that he’s okay. That was a freaky situation no doubt. So hopefully he’s okay. But, you know, in terms of the baseball stuff, that was that added to just the weirdness of the inning. And, uh, and then Scooble throws a wild pitch. Uh, CL scored a wild pitch. I’m sure Dingle would probably say he he should probably block do a better job of blocking that, but it it goes down as a wild pitch. And, uh, and then you get another ground out that scores a run. All of a sudden, you lose the lead on what I would almost consider like non with with that part of the lineup. Non baseball ism stuff like it was just like out of this world things that added. None of those balls left the infield. None of them were hit harder than 65.5 miles an hour. I think none of them traveled farther than five feet before hitting the ground. I don’t. So that’s Guardians Guard the Guardians double magic at its absolute finest. But you also had a terubble error, wild pitch, and bo all in the same inning. It was like a total like a total I’m sorry. It was like a total mental meltdown. I mean, the play that was just you’re trying to get an out, but that’s like a hero ball play. It’s not It’s not a smart play. Whatever. Um the Bach he said he I don’t know. Ramirez was shuffling and dancing. I asked him if that distracted him. He said no, it was more the noise. I’m not sure if he meant crowd noise or the noise of Ramirez’s feet or, you know, someone yelling to alert him. I I still don’t even know, but he flinched. He had the wild pitch. You know, he he couldn’t really control those other base runners on the infield hits, but it was like this meltdown. It left him deeply flustered. The Fry thing, I mean, you feel for both David Fry and and Terry Scooel, you know, you saw his reaction. Took his hat off, threw his glove. He was he was kind of horrified. Um, and you don’t want to criticize a guy for that, but I I do think he kind of struggled to lock back in the competition. He said that wasn’t a factor, but Dylan Dingler said, “Look, I know that’s tough. I know it’s tough.” And sounded like he was going to say something else and then said, “That’s all I’m going to say.” So, you know, I think he felt maybe Trick uh hadn’t locked in. And then in the bench, Scooble threw his glove. Scooble looked dejected. Talking to him postgame, it was the, for lack of a better term, pissiest I have seen terable since probably his first full season in the major leagues when he was having some rough starts. Um, this one got to him, man. This one got to him and I think this one got to the whole team more than any of these other losses have. Yeah. Uh, again, just a a a bizarre and like almost indescribable like series of events. Uh, somebody I I’m I apologize. It’s late night so I can’t remember exactly who put it out there, but somebody put out like Scuba had like only a handful of like a Bach and like you know wild pitch. It was Tony Paul. That was the second Bach of his career. The 11th wild pitch of his career. Uh something like seventh error, sixth error, something like that. Probably the first error where he tried to flip the ball between his legs. So no, no, no, it’s not. He did it in Miami two years ago. Okay, there you go. Okay, that’s that’s that’s shout out to the research department on that one on on the Twitter sphere. Uh so so yeah, uh just like you would you would bet everything that you wouldn’t get all of those things in this game period, much less in in one inning. And I mean I you know shout out to the Guardians for kind of you know putting pressure on the Tigers and then also like just kind of figuring well we got to do something against this guy. So, we’re we’re we’re gonna just do something different and we’re gonna lay down bunts and we’re just gonna find a way. So, that’s that’s really the big thing right now here, Cody, is that all the magic that we experienced last year watching this team and then up until like six weeks ago watching this team is gone. Like the like the the it has evaporated, is gone. It’s dead. It’s all the way dead. And it Well, it’s not dead. They just relocated to Cleveland. I mean, that’s really what it is. Like like you know, it’s not created. It’s just transferred. Like like Cleveland’s got it all. And again, this is to their credit. They are doing this. They are earning everything here. And like I kept taking notes during this game and I was like if they’re going to turn this around, if they’re going to write the ship, there’s going to have to be some sort of breakthrough some from somebody or some like ism that is hasn’t been working. You know, there was a possibility like when when uh Dingler has the back pick and it’s like all right, now they’re, you know, they’re on top of everything. Like that’s one of those like old classic tigery smart plays. like maybe that can kind of spark something you know even uh you know McKenstry getting the double and then and then Perez doubling home and it’s like okay well those are two guys that we have been kind of saying like gonna have to get something and they and you got something there like that’s a start and then even uh right after Riley Green probably runs the fastest he’s run all season for an infield hit and then you know they get the loaded base situation there gets a shutdown inning right afterward and I’m like okay like you’re humming like you’re kind playing Tigers baseball and then it all comes to a crash uh in in in that sixth inning. And then I’ll compound the scubble emotion with Torque when he struck out there in the eighth where he slammed his bat. I’m actually kind of glad that I saw all that from those two guys specifically. Glad I saw someone show some emotion. Yeah, you guys because because here’s the thing, they can coach speak their way through this if they want like outwardly. Uh but the thing is like th this is real now. It’s real. AL Central is tied and the tiebreaker not in your favor. So like the Tigers have done it. They’ve blown the lead. They’ve blown a 15 and a half game division lead. Now you still got a chance to get it back. You still got a chance to get in the playoffs. But you have you’ve done it. You’ve blown it. Unbelievable. The at bat quality Karen was poor. It was awful. They struck out 19 times. They had, I think, 33 whiffs just chasing, just breaking balls out of the zone. But they also took, I think, 32 called strikes. So, they were just completely caught in between. Didn’t seem to have much of an approach. Couldn’t eliminate spin from Gavin Williams Arsenal, which I think would be what the scouting report would say. If you see the ball doing this, don’t swing. Uh, that’s a lot easier said than done. and watching some of the pitching ninja videos, you can see that that ball looks the same until it’s about on you, but you had all night to make an adjustment and pretty much no one did. You had some big at bats. You mentioned the bases loaded situation. You just got guys hacking at stuff in the dirt and then taking pitches, their strikes. Strike zone was a little big, but I mean, come on. It’s It also seemed like the at bats are getting worse every game. Yeah, if you remember earlier this year, there was a time it’s like, man, the really, you can see them kind of executing a plan. You can see them doing something every night, whether it’s, you know, we’re going to jump on this guy’s fastball or we’re not going to swing at sliders or you can usually identify a common theme. I don’t know what happened to that. That’s long gone. Yeah. And we’re going to get on several more tangents here uh because there’s a lot to say from from this game, but if we if we go on, we’re going to forget to take care of the people that take care of us. So, we’re going to get to some more missed breakthroughs that I took note of from this game. But first, a word from our sponsors. FTF fam. Superpower believes that every human has 100year potential, and they’re going to help you get there. I like the sweatshirt, Eric. And I also love the way that Superpower takes care of its members. Yeah. You go get your lab test, you become the best you. You be a member of this group and your test will come back. It’s unlocking things that you didn’t know about yourself. This is stuff that players used all the time. You can do it now, too. Exactly, Kratz. How many of you have gone to a doctor’s appointment? 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Like he was he was over and uh he had he has he has two hits including, you know, the home run. So again, you’re thinking like maybe these are kind of things that can kind of get, you know, get you in the right direction. Doesn’t happen. Uh, and then Kyle Finnean, I I I I know you made note of this on X and in your uh and in your story on the Athletic. Kyle Finnegan comes in to to face Quan. Uh, I’ll get your re your analysis of that decision in a second, but he g he ends up giving up two hits and and and and you know, the game breaks open at that point. You know, he gave up three hits, Cody, his entire time with the Tigers pre-injjury. And yeah, how many times have I pointed out how crazy Lois Bab was? Yeah. And since then, he has and in two outings, he has given up three, I would say, consequential and loud hits, and that’s not including runs. So, back-to-back outings with earned runs after not giving up an earned run. uh you know uh his his f you know pre-injjury with the Tigers, but it was an interesting decision by AJ to bring in uh to bring in Finnegan in that situation. It was one of the most questionable, inexplicable decisions I can think of AJ Hinch making there’s got to be others in in five years covering him. This is tonight. This seems like the strangest one. I I guess I know why it’s not strange though is the thing. We talked about the their flaws in their roster construction going into this series with only two left-handed pitchers and AJ Henchot asked about that before the game and he said, “I don’t care about handedness as much as maybe some do.” That’s a that’s a that’s a that is something to say, man. I got like right Karen, we’ve we’ve talked about this because I know you don’t always care about handedness and I talk there are two reasons I care about handedness, Karen. One is I believe in basic math and two is because I’ve covered AJ Hinch for five seasons and all I’ve heard is matchups and handedness and suddenly in the biggest series he has played he doesn’t care about handedness. I don’t know if he was covering from the front off for the front office or if if we’re really in the upside down. Now I know Drew Summers is not the best pitcher in the world and Bailey Horn’s got pretty good stuff. I would take him in a pinch even though he doesn’t throw strikes. So in a way I guess you can understand Kyle Finnegan handles lefties well. I guess I could understand like maybe if if your choices are Drew Summers or Kyle Finnegan in that in that situation maybe. But you know Drew Summers is not in this. You know who was fresh and ready? It was Tyler Holton. And at the top of the order two outs you need to get one batter out. You brought in a righty. Stephen Quan has a 774 OPS against righties and a 590 OPS against lefties. I don’t know why you wouldn’t bring in Tyler Holden or Ed Brander or you saving him for something else maybe. But guess what? Nothing else matters. Uh at least not in this game. Um because Quan hit a double and then the Guardians had lefties on their bench. AJ manages against this all the time. So what happens? Steven V puts in another lefty. What happens? he gets another hit. You’re in that situation because of a poor roster construction. That’s Scott Aerys’s fault in my opinion. And then AJ Hinch, a very strange decision. He said, “That’s our guy. We want him facing the top of the order.” I’m not real sure why you would want him facing the top of the order when the top of the order includes Steven Quan. But I guess I’m just one of these people that cares about handedness now. All right. You like math? Here here’s a stat for you. I didn’t see anybody uh any anybody put this out there. I went I went and found it myself. So, part of the Guardians Magic or Voodoo or Tiger’s Curse or whatever you want to place it on is that Daniel Schneiman, it was a two two count, right? Daniel Schneean this season on 22 counts hits 104 and he got he got himself a split that didn’t split and it was up and and he poked it the other way and and and and and that’s you know 27 outs and all these things that we’ve been saying and witnessing. It’s not just words. We’ve been witnessing it for you know better part of two years now. It does not feel like that applies in that in in these situations anymore. No. And I I was trying to look a little deeper on the fly. Like Quan hasn’t been great against splitters. I think he’s in like 190 against splitters this year. But then why are you throwing him a four seam fast ball, you know? I mean, I guess you can’t just throw him four or five. I don’t know. Maybe you can. If you’re trying to get him out, why why are you giving Stephen Quan fast? Steu your fast. And and we haven’t even mentioned the fact that, you know, Canley walks. I mean, Hedges, Hedges might be the most impactful sub 200 hitter against one team in the history of Major League. Unbelievable. But he is literally one of the worst hitters in the history of Major League Baseball. No offense. Awesome dude. Great catcher. That’s why teams still won. But he is a terrible hitter. And you got him down 02 and you walked him. Yeah, it’s unbelievable. Uh again, it’s just it there are a lot like there were a lot of things that were fun last year because they did not they were the unexplainable and we’re and we’re seeing uh some more unexplainable aspects uh from this team right now as again they are tied and they have lost their AL Central lead. All right, we’re going to uh continue talk about this game and and and and and what what what is the what is going on in that clubhouse. You know, Cody’s obviously in Cleveland. You guys can see that if he’s uh if you’re watching on YouTube. But first, a word from our sponsors. Todd, father, you and me grew up in Jersey. We liked to collect cards, but the way the process got was ridiculous. You open up a pack. There’s a bunch of cards you don’t care about. Then you want to get certain ones graded. Takes forever, right? Then you want to maybe sell one. It’s such a to-do. Arena Club has been the solution for us. Arena Club has been a solution for everybody. You go online, go to Arena Club, and you check out what they have, put a little cash down, and you might get one of the best cards that you’ve ever seen in your life, an autograph card. And guess what? If you don’t like the card, easily, you could sell it back and make a little cash. You never know what to expect. It’s a cool way of doing it. You’re going to get a surprise every time. And if you’re in the cards, this is something you really need to get into. Right now, you can get 20% off your first slab pack or card purchase by going to aracub.comfoul and use code foul like ToddFather’s talking about with those slap packs. Every pack has a grail. That’s at least 20x the price of the pack. Check it out. All right, coming back here. Uh, obviously this is not something that cost them the game, but another just kind of strange wrinkle, you know, before the game even started was, you know, Javier Bayz is in the starting lineup and he gets scratched due to uh it was neck stiffness, right? That Yeah. And so Jav’s dayto day, don’t know a lot else, but he’s day to day. Okay. And and then the ball finds you. Trey Sweeney has to come in early and in the first inning he gets a, you know, another jam job. Uh, you know, if only we knew there was going to be a more consequential jam job later in the game. Uh, but another jam job where you think he’s going to get to it, but then you think if he’s not going to get to it, he’s going to he’s going to be able to take the short hop and then uh and then have a play at first. And neither one of those things happened. Uh, and so that just, you know, in a weird school did have a little bit of motion. And I don’t know if you guys caught that, but it was like, you know, especially, you know, being top of the order here, you don’t want to put runners on for for Jos Ramirez. Uh but but that that that was a thing that happened. Does Jav make that play? You kind of probably assume he does. And then in fairness to Sweeney, he did make a nice play in the hole later in the game where he got, you know, got the force out of third for the final out of the inning. But uh we talk we we we talk about roster construction. That’s a part of it too, man. like like and I I’ve said I’m not a big call up Kevin McGonagle guy. He couldn’t be worse than Trey Sweeney at this point though. Like I don’t like really it’s just a shame you don’t have any other feasible option, you know, on your roster. I And I don’t want to pick on Trey Sweeney too much because this guy’s out here. He’s grinding. He’s doing the best he can, but he’s in over his head right now. and you’re in a playoff chase and it’s what you’re throwing out there. You know, early in the game there’s another decision people saying should should Sweeney have bunted uh you get a guy to third and then would have hit a sack fly would have brought in another run. I’m not a big bunting guy, but not going to out the person who told me this, but someone said with that guy up, I would bought in the first inning. I’d bought in the second inning. I’d bought in the third inning. I’d bought in the eighth inning. I’d bought the ninth. Like I hit a ground ball and get the guy over. Come on. I mean, that’s I’ve like I’m more inclined to the strategic bunt than than you are. Uh and of course, ironically, later in the game, we saw what what strateging being unleashed. But but I am of the opinion that look, if this guy has a five WRC plus, uh you could do worse than than really going to run her over. And and also like in terms of the weirdness of the game, uh Wel again it turned out not to matter, but Wel just completely botching that read on a fly ball to center. Uh you know, he he surely could have gotten to third base or at least like put himself in. Yeah, I thought he could have got to third. Uh cuz that ball, I mean, especially with that wall there, that ball was not going to carry the wall. Uh, so again, it didn’t end up mattering, but it, you know, it was again one of those like little small things. I I was I’m making note of all the small things, Cody, because all the small things right now are are adding up to to to one big one big thing. So now now looking forward you got a big game Jack big game Jack Flity and and Casey Mai are your are your saving graces and or excuse me uh and and and a Monto combination with with uh we we didn’t even talk about this last episode did we who’s pitching Saturday like like you’re using Peter Monttero and you better hope that game goes well because if not you’re using everybody else too. And you my player like are you going to have enough arms to get you through the rest of the regular season? Better hope Troy Melton’s fresh for three or four. Like you better we don’t even know who’s pitching Saturday. And this isn’t quite like last year where they’re set up to do kind of the the chaos thing neatly knowing who the bulk guy is going to be every day. They’re not in that situation. and you don’t have a lot of dependability necessarily in flity or mai if they have a shorter outing. I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, you’re it’s technically not do or die every day, but it’s but it might as well be, right? And so this whole like, you know, play to win today thing, uh, is, you know, could very well be tested because like your margin for error was pretty damn thin and now it doesn’t exist. The margin of error just does not exist. So, uh, you you know who I want to give a shout out to? Shout out to Jack Flity. I think he showed a little leadership. Maybe Flity walked in the clubhouse in Cleveland and he said, uh, media, don’t talk to the young guys. I don’t know exactly why he said that. I can’t say for sure what his motive was, but best I can come up with is he’s like he just didn’t want, you know, reporters asking the younger guys on the team about the losing streak. Maybe that’s something the veteran guys should be talking about. They don’t have that many veterans. Jack Flity is one of them. So, we went over and we talked to Jack Flity. And I don’t know if that was anything or maybe there was some other weird reason he was saying that, but I kind of took it as a subtle sign of flity, shown some leadership in a tough time. And in a world where you’re just scratching inclined to find anything that could resemble a good omen, uh that’s that’s that’s as good as that’s as good as we’re going to find right right now. And um and yeah, that that’s you’re out of character right now with the way that you’re playing. So maybe something like that, which correct me if I’m wrong, that’s pretty out of character for Jack Flity to I I wouldn’t have expected him to be the guy to do something like that. So, so like maybe if you’re just trying to bust uh the the status quo, which is a sevengame losing streak, and now now you’ve lost a division lead. Uh that’s as good as anything. So, you can cling and hope to that and see what happens uh here the rest of this series. Uh anything else, Cody, before we get out of here? Uh I I feel like we’re forgiving something. I’m sure there are more things we could complain about from that game, but um not sure anyone actually wants to relive it anymore. You got to get a go. You got to get up. It’s hard to fathom. The Tigers do not lead the AL Central. They are tied for the top. They do not hold the tiebreaker. There are five games left. Remember back when I used to say, I don’t think there’s a 90 win version of this team. I backed off that for I backed off that once they were the best team in baseball. So yeah, maybe maybe I never should have backed off it because they might not win 90 games despite having just an incredible first half. Well, again, I’ll copy the AJism. You know, we’ve earned the right to Xville. They’ve definitely earned uh this this blowing this division. Uh there’s there’s no there’s no doubt about that. So, all right, you guys can follow us on X formerly known as Twitter, Cody Hang, and I cursely pod page tiger territory YouTube, Instagram, Apple, Spotify. You guys know what to do. We appreciate all of you. So for coach Steven Hagen, I am Kieran Steckley.

The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen and cohost Kieran Steckley debrief after the Tigers’ worst loss yet in what could go down as an historic collapse.

What went wrong?
How will we remember the sixth inning?
Was Tarik Skubal rattled?
Is A.J. Hinch finally taking some blame?
What about those at-bats?

All that and more in our latest episode.

Tiger Territory is the official Detroit Tigers Podcast of the Foul Territory Network.

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