Pittsburgh – The Tigers are in a funk, there’s no debating that. And there were moments Tuesday night, as they were getting beaten again by the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, that were so below their established standard of play, it was jarring.
The 8-5 loss at PNC Park was their eighth in their last nine games. They’ve lost some because of bullpen implosions. They’ve lost others, especially on this road trip, because of an anemic offense.
The last one was more of a full team meltdown.
“We had a really bad mental game today,” manager AJ Hinch said. “And that’s really rare for this team and we paid for it. It’s tough because, some of it might be trying to do too much and some of it might be trying to do too little and easing our way or trying to stay under control.
“But these are mistakes we know we can fix and we will fix and be better for it. But it cost us tonight.”
The accountability came from every corner of the clubhouse. No excuses were made.
“We’re struggling, but that’s all right,” said catcher Jake Rogers, whose three-run homer in the fifth briefly brought the Tigers back into the game. “We’re going to come back and be all right. We need to clean up the hustle. We’re a hustling team and we have fun. Once we get both of those things back, we’re going to hit the ground running.
“Baseball is tough and we’re going to get our a– kicked. It’s just part of it. We just have to start limiting the unnecessary stuff. When we do that, we’re going to get to winning again. Hustle and have fun.”
The brunt of the damage will show up on starting pitcher Casey Mize’s ledger. And the Pirates, the worst-hitting team in the National League, hit him hard. They put 17 balls in play in four innings with an average exit velocity of 97 mph.
BOX SCORE: Pirates 8, Tigers 5
He left with 10 hits and five runs allowed, four of them earned. And there could’ve been more. There were three other runners that shortstop Javier Báez threw out at home plate, two on infield ground balls with a runner on third and the other on a relay from right-fielder Wenceel Perez, gunning down Tommy Pham to end the fourth inning.
But more troubling than the hard contact against Mize were the misplays, mental and physical, by his teammates behind him. Though Mize put that on himself, too.
“I just look at myself and what I can do better,” said Mize, whose ERA has climbed from 2.86 to 3.40 in his last two starts. “I think the role of the starting pitcher is so important, just setting the tone for the game and not having those guys on the field for too long. Which can lead to some fatigued at-bats and to what can happen on the field.
“If those guys are on the field a ton, then stuff like that can happen. I’m not getting them off the field quick enough, I’m not setting a tone early and I didn’t give us a chance to win my last two times out.”
With one out in the third, center fielder Parker Meadows lost a screaming line drive by Oneil Cruz in the sun. The ball left Cruz’s bat at 114 mph, so there’s a chance Meadows wouldn’t have tracked it down anyway.
“He couldn’t see it,” Hinch said. “The one position the sun was still impacting and he hit it to the perfect spot.”
Next hitter, Ke’Bryan Hayes, hit a high-chopper to Zach McKinstry at third. His throw eluded first baseman Spencer Torkelson. That was the first of two throwing errors charged to McKinstry.
Torkelson kept the play alive, though, by not hustling after the ball. Cruz, who was jogging into third, saw Torkelson slow-playing it and turned on the jets and sped home.
“That was terrible,” said Torkelson, who had two doubles and a single. “Everybody knows that was terrible. … I figured the play was dead but mentally just didn’t even look. He’s aggressive and I have to know that after that play he’s thinking I would fall asleep and I did.”
Torkelson apologized to his teammates in the dugout.
“He took the backend of the play off,” Hinch said. “He felt terrible. He fell asleep and with a guy with Cruz’s speed, he took advantage of it. Tork knew it from the get-go and he was very accountable about it. He’s not a guy who makes those mistakes.”
Mize got out of the third, but the Pirates blistered four hits off him in the fourth. The last was another missile by Cruz into the right-center gap, which led to Báez’s strong relay throw that ended the inning and Mize’s outing.
Another mental misplay: The deficit was three runs in the top of the fourth when Perez walked and advanced to third on a single by Torkelson. He tagged on a fly ball to right field by McKinstry and beat the throw from Alexander Canario.
Except, on his head-first slide home, Perez never touched the plate. The safe call was rightly overturned after video replay.
For a team that had scored just three runs in the previous four games, taking one off the board was painful.
Wait, there’s more. After Rogers’ homer made it 5-3, the Pirates got all three runs back in the bottom of the sixth, an inning that started when the first hitter, Spencer Horwitz, struck out and still reached first when reliever Carlos Hernandez’s third strike pitch sailed to the backstop and Horwitz was safe.
The Pirates proceeded to bang out two RBI knocks off Hernandez and another off lefty Brant Hurter.
Cruz, who walked in the inning, also stole third base uncontested. Rogers’ throw hit the batter, Canario, which allowed Hayes to advance to second.
Just some dreadful baseball, uncharacteristic of the way the Tigers (60-42) have played for nearly a full calendar year.
“Maybe it’s just the stretch we’re in,” Torkelson said when asked what he thinks is contributing to some of the mental lapses. “We don’t ever want a game like this to happen with all these mess-ups. But if it’s going to happen, we’re going to turn it into a positive and use it as a time to reset and refocus ourselves.
“Because we’ve definitely lost some focus on those plays. But that’s part of it. If it’s going to happen, this is a fine time to let it happen. Just refocus and ball out for the next 50-plus games and beyond.”
Jahmai Jones, who had been in an 0-for-14 skid, hit a pinch-hit two-run homer in the eighth and the Tigers brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth against closer David Bednar. So the fight is still there.
The focus and execution early in games needs to match it.
“We were the first team to 60 wins and we can easily be the first team to 70 wins,” Torkelson said. “We just need to get our swagger back and that comes with the refocus and re-locking in and trusting it. We’re a really good team. We just need to play like it.”
Hinch isn’t giving anybody detention or threatening demotion. He’s not overturning tables in the clubhouse. This is hardly the time to shriek and panic. But he isn’t giving free passes, either.
“We are a much better team, a much cleaner team, that what we’ve showed,” he said. “But we’ve been trending with some struggles that we know we can fix. This group is very confident. But we have to wear it while we’re going through it. Because the reality is, we haven’t played our best and it’s cost us.”
@cmccosky
Want to comment on this story? Become a subscriber today. Click here.