Detroit Tigers vs Seattle Mariners Game 5 Preview: Who Advances to the ALCS?

Detroit Tigers vs Seattle Mariners Game 5 Preview: Who Advances to the ALCS?

[Applause] Better than box scores. The Tigers win and they force a game five on Friday in Seattle. We do have a postgame show posted on our YouTube channel with me and with Trevor May. So, if you’d like to check out Thoughts from us right after the game, you can do that later. But AJ is calling that series. So, let’s get your instant reaction to what’s coming next here. What should we expect for game five? Does that Tigers offensive burst carry over? Does School finally beat the Mariners this year? How do the Mariners employ their starting staff? Right, because they’ve got two guys that can go and Luis Castillo and George Kirby. What do you have for us? Do you Okay, first of all, we’ll start with this. Do you think that at the beginning of this series if you would have told AJ Hinch they’d be 2-2? They would have lost the Scooble game and they’d have Scoo going game five, he would have taken it. Even though they got a fly to Seattle, you think he would have taken it? Oh, hell yes. 100% he would have taken it. Now, if you’re the Mariners, you say, “We’ve beaten Scooball three times already this year. Luis Castillo has beaten him twice headto-head.” Now, not him, but they’ve won both. They won all three games that Skubo has pitched against them. You think the Mariners are afraid of Terrence Scubble? I don’t know because they’ve already beaten him three times. They got a chance to beat him four times in a season and he’s the best. You know, him and SK, you can make the argument are probably the best two pitchers in the world right now. So, wow. I don’t know. There’s a lot of drama for this. The Seattle crowd is going to be going bonkers because they’re thinking they got a chance to not only win this series, but go to the World Series for the first time ever. The Tigers, I know Detroit is crazy. Detroit was rocking yesterday. It’s going to be fascinating one how how well TK pitches because he pitched really well last time. Seven innings really only two mistakes. The two homers to Palanco Luis Castillo pitched great. George Kirby pitched really well only gave up the one mistake to Carrie Carpenter. And then the bullpen deployment. Man, these two guys, it’s like, all right, well, I saw this guy now. I’m going to pitch this guy. You know, Hinch and Dan Wilson are going back and forth. And why are they making moves and trying to take pieces off the board and move guys around and this and that, changing lineups to set matchups. There’s a lot of strategy in this game. There’s a lot of ifs and there’s a lot of buts and there’s a lot of we can see this and we could see that. There’s a million different scenarios. It’s it’s going to be an awesome game just because of all the things that can go wrong or right depending on who you’re looking at. I really wonder how they’re going to deploy these bullpens. I think AJ Hinch has a much easier game. I think it is Terubles to win or Teroulles to lose. I don’t think when he gets into struggles, you know, if he has a second and third situation, let’s say he gives up a walk and then a double second and third, that’s when Terry Scooel goes into strikeout mode. But AJ Hint’s not going to sit there and go, I think I’m going to take him out. I think Dan Wilson, if it’s Kirby, if it’s Castillo, whoever it is that starts, if one of his pitchers gets into trouble, I’m going right to it. So to me, how these bullpens are used, not just, oh well, this is my best guy. I want to go, but hey, you know what? Javier Bayas has faced um I’m completely blanking on his name. Help me out. Who did Jav Bayas face like four times? Bazardo. Eduard Bazard. He’s faced him four times. Four games. He’s faced him four at bats. That’s like I was a career 209 hitter. If you put the nastiest pitch on a pitching machine and you say, “Eric, I need you to get a hit on it.” You know what? I’m probably gonna look pretty stupid my first few at bats, my fir or my first few pitches facing it. But if you keep throwing that pitch at me, you keep throwing it and putting it in machine and you don’t change it up at all because that’s what’s happening when you face guys back to back to backtoback days. Everything looks the same. You’re like, I remember this. Not even talking about the fact that the dude’s exhausted. Not even talking about the fact that, you know, some guys can and can’t make adjustments on the mound. It’s advantage hitter. I would be able to get a hit off of the nastiest pitch if you show it to me enough times. So, it’ll be interesting if that comes into Dan Wilson or AJ Hinch’s mind. Like, he’s seen him so many times. We can’t we I saw the swings he had on him last time. Maybe we don’t go to it. Maybe our lanes that are predetermined pregame may need to shift a little bit. And it’s going to take a lot of balls for a for a manager to say, “I get it. He’s my best pitcher in this sixth inning spot. I just didn’t like what I saw last time. I’m going to this guy because if it doesn’t work, there’ll be a lot of scrutiny on your side.” Listen, I have another Scubble might scuba might throw 150 pitches in this game. If he’s on, he might he might if he’s on, he might he seriously might he might throw 200 pitches. It’s his game. And and everyone you talk to on both sides, they know it. And the his his presence was looming over the whole game yesterday. And that’s why, but listen, I I’ll be honest. I don’t care who wins at all. So, let’s get that out there. But I will say this, and we said it on the broadcast, the Tigers offense did absolutely nothing. I mean, we were I I told I told AJ Hinch, I s Hinch on the street last night, okay? I was walking and he pulled up in his car and he stopped me and he started yelling at me, you know? I was like, gosh, it was this random crazy person yelling at me from their super nice car and it was Hinch and he’s like, “What’d you think?” And I was like, “Man, y’all are down three nothing.” I was booking my flight home. I’m like, “You guys had nothing going.” And then all of a sudden, one inning, I I don’t even know what happened. It was like Bryce Miller was dealing. They had never scored a run off of him. And then Dingler hits the double. And then as soon as he hit that double, it was like they remembered how to hit again. I I can’t explain it because then they then the Mariners like, “Okay, we got Spire against Riley Green who hadn’t done anything the whole series.” And Adam Wayright said before, he literally said before we went on the air for the he goes, he goes, “Riley Green might go deep here and he’s probably gonna go deep here and then he’s going to get hot as all fire and watch out.” Boom. He hits the homer and then the wheels came off and I can’t explain. I I don’t know what changed. It was literally nothing changed. It was like the Mariners pitching was dominating the offense. Offense, offense. Whack. That hit by Dingler changed everything. And now game five is a tossup. But I can’t explain it. I wish I could explain it. I don’t know. Josh Naylor made it very obvious that he wanted the Tigers to know that he was watching science. Oh my gosh. AJ, what are your thoughts? You were great at picking that out. And do you think that pisses a team off? I mean, we’ve talked about it. That would piss me off. I know you don’t need extra motivation, but just listen to Cam Schiller in his first start against Boston. He literally said, “I have extra motivation. People were pissing me off on social media.” Do you think that Josh Naylor pissed off and lit up the Tigers? I don’t know what the hell Josh Naylor was doing because everyone I talked to after the game was like, “Oh, that was fake. It was just fake. It was just fake.” And he was going like this. But the only thing that gave it away is the next guy that got on second, Domone, did something also. And he went like this. And both times he did it, it was an off speed pitch. So he he made it like obvious too. So I know you have different signals with different hitters and different runners. I don’t know what Naylor was doing, but I mean it’s like again it goes back to what you know Krautz and I have talked about this. You used to just get smoked if you did anything like I remember I would just stand there and be like I don’t want to move because I don’t want anyone to get hit you know right and you don’t hit Naylor you hit Suarez and you say that’s for him acting like a fool out at second base and jumping around right you hit Cal Raleigh and you say tell Naylor to calm down if you don’t want to get hit next time. Right? And then that guy goes in the dugout but that doesn’t happen anymore. It’s fine. That’s the way they play. But again, does he have anything? I don’t know. The only thing I thought was because it was a lefty and it I think it was Holton, Tyler Holton. He the way he set, he could see. And then when the righty came in, uh, Finnegan, he was set different, so they couldn’t see the balls the ball in his hand. That was the only thing I was thinking he was picking up because Dingler was setting up late. He was setting up the same. So, I don’t know what the heck he was doing. It’s just crazy when you see guys out there jumping around and waving their hand. Like, I first of all, I would have been like, “Dude, stop. You’re distracting me from trying to hit because there’s all this junk going around out there, right? Like whoa. They’re doing like all kinds of dance moves and stuff. Like just stand there and let me try to hit. Unless you’re giving me something. Calm down. Trevor May said he thinks he really was picking up some offspe both of them and they’re looking like they’re Tik Tok dancers. That would piss me off. I’m just throwing that out there. I feel like I agree. This little trend that’s going on right now is bush league. And if you’re faking it, it’s still bush league in my mind. I think it’s bush league. You don’t need to do that. win the freaking ball game. I think they pissed the Tigers off. Just throwing that out there. Somebody should ask the question to the Tigers if they win this series.

AJ Pierzynski, Erik Kratz, and Scott Braun react to the Tigers forcing a Game 5 against the Mariners after a dramatic win in Detroit. They preview the winner-take-all matchup in Seattle, breaking down Tarik Skubal vs. either Luis Castillo or George Kirby, how both managers might handle their bullpens, and whether Detroit’s offense can stay hot.

Foul Territory Presented by FOX One: Start your 7-day free trial today at https://tinyurl.com/FOXOneFreeTrial

Subscribe to the podcast!
https://apple.co/3KWKFNo

Follow all our social media channels for more content!
Tweets by FoulTerritoryTV
https://www.instagram.com/foulterritoryshow/

@foulterritory

https://www.facebook.com/FoulTerritoryShow
https://www.twitch.tv/foulterritoryshow