Arlington, Texas — This is not a crisis. It may be the Tigers’ first taste of adversity this season and it’s certainly not a lot of fun. But it’s a rough patch, not a reversal of fortune.
“It’s part of the journey,” All-Star second baseman Gleyber Torres said after the Tigers dropped their fifth straight game, losing to the Rangers 2-0 Friday at Globe Life Field. “I know this sounds weird, but I prefer this to happen right now and not in September. We’re still in a good position in our division.
“We don’t take anything for granted, but this is just what’s happening right now. We have to keep playing. We have another opportunity tomorrow.”
A more pressing concern might be veteran reliever Tommy Kahnle.
He took over a scoreless game in the bottom of the eighth inning and yielded the game-altering two-run, two-out double to Corey Seager. He gave up a one-out double to his old Yankees batterymate Kyle Higashioka and with two outs walked leadoff hitter Josh Smith, bringing one of the Rangers’ most dangerous hitters to the plate.
Kahnle compounded the problem by falling behind 3-1 before Seager lashed a changeup (107 mph off his bat) into the right-centerfield gap.
“The walk is a killer in front of Seager,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “Putting their best player in the biggest spot to come up with the biggest swing and he did it.”
Kahnle had a 1.77 ERA through June. But he gave up five runs without recording an out in Washington on July 2 and in back-to-back ninth innings against the Mariners last weekend, he allowed seven total runs, again without recording an out.
“He’s kind of been losing the battle of the biggest pitch of the game the last few games,” Hinch said. “We have to find a way to get him to execute better. He’s been so good for us for so long, it’s unfortunate this week has happened — both for him and for our team.
“It puts us in a tough spot.”
Producing runs hasn’t been a problem for the Tigers but the bats were almost completely silenced Friday, first by veteran lefty Patrick Corbin and then a trio of relievers, the last being lefty Robert Garcia, who locked down his seventh save.
“Corbin threw the ball really well and he didn’t miss in the middle of the plate,” said Torres, whose 25-game on-base streak came to an end. “He was on the corners all night long throwing strikes. He’s been around the league many years and he knows how it is.”
The Tigers have handled left-handed starters well this season. Their .720 winning percentage (18-7) was best in the big league at the All-Star break. Corbin didn’t care anything about that. He allowed three singles in his 5.2 innings with six strikeouts.
BOX SCORE: Rangers 2, Tigers 0
“He could do a little bit of everything tonight and we had a hard time putting quality at-bats together,” Hinch said. “If we were out over the plate, he would dart it in. When we waiting for a ball in, he’d land it away.”
A walk and a single by Javier Báez got him in a little trouble in the fifth, but Torres’ line drive in the gap ended up in centerfielder Evan Carter’s glove for the third out.
“We didn’t have many opportunities, just that one,” Torres said. “I fought him hard but I didn’t do anything. It’s a tough loss.”
Tigers’ pitchers were stringing zeroes, too. Starter Reese Olson came out of the break looking as crisp and sharp as he has at any point this season.
“Yeah, I felt a little more normal than I had my last two starts back,” said Olson, who blew through five scoreless innings allowing only a walk and controversial single. “Still too many three-ball counts but I felt more normal, for sure.”
The single was by Higashioka with one out in the third. Left fielder Riley Greene dived and thought he caught ball before it hit the ground. The third base umpire Carlos Torres ruled the ball hit the ground.
After a length replay review the call was upheld, though several angles seemed to show the ball hit the webbing of Greene’s glove first.
Catcher Jonah Heim followed, hitting a hard ground ball that shortstop Báez fielded in front of second base. He elected to chase down Higashioka between first and second. Higashioka eluded the tag and Baez hurriedly threw wildly past first baseman Spencer Torkelson.
Instead of an inning-ending double-play, or at worst a runner at first and two outs, the Rangers had runners at the corners and one out.
Baez and Hinch argued, to no avail, that Higashioka eluded Báez by going outside the baseline. Which, again, replays seemed to show that he did.
“Alfonso (Marquez, second base umpire) said Javy didn’t attempt to tag him,” Hinch said. “When you look at the replay, it looks like he extends his arm, but he’s 15 feet away from Higashioka. It’s not really an attempt to tag. If he deemed it was an attempt to tag, then he could have called him out of the base line.
“But if not, the runner has a lot of liberty to move around a little bit.”
Olson didn’t buckle. He got Smith to fly out to shallow left and struck out Seager to end the inning.
“When those things happen, you just have to lock in and flush that and continue to try to make pitches,” Olson said. “Thankfully, we were able to get out of that clean.”
Lefty reliever Tyler Holton finished the sixth inning for Olson in clutch fashion, striking out Seager and getting Marcus Semien to fly out to center, stranding a runner at third base.
All for naught.
“I don’t think our team cares about streaks either way, so we’ll be fine,” Hinch said. “We need to play a little better, make the right pitch and make the right play and put up some offense, like we’d done for 90-plus games this year. It feels worse when you are going through it, at any time of the year.
“It doesn’t matter what your record is, nobody likes to lose.”
@cmccosky