After an exciting, one-run, extra-inning win on Thursday night, there was far less muscle-clenching on Friday night in Minnesota as the Tigers easily beat the Twins 7-0.
Charlie Morton made his third start for the Tigers (and 20th overall), and the first two have been A Tale Of Two Charlies. His debut for the Tigers went swimmingly: one run on four hits in six innings. The follow-up was, well, a clunker: 4 1/3 innings and six runs surrendered, but he did strike out ten, so I guess that’s something. Which Morton would show up tonight?
Rookie righty Pierson Ohl made his third major-league start for the Twins; he’d also made two multi-inning relief appearances. His longest outing in the majors all season had been three innings coming into tonight, so it’s not like he was going to go deep in this one. It’s been a little rocky so far; his previous two starts saw him surrender four runs each. He’s made quite a climb this season, spending time at every level from single-A to the major leagues; he spent most of the past two seasons at Double-A Wichita in the Texas League and did quite well.
The start of the game was delayed slightly by rain, but things eventually dried out and the action got underway with Colt Keith and Gleyber Torres hitting singles to put runners on the corners with none out. Kerry Carpenter hit a grounder to second that Luke Keaschall couldn’t handle, allowing Keith to score for a 1-0 lead. After a flyout Spencer Torkelson walked to load the bases, Wenceel Pérez struck out and you had to wonder if a squander was in order. But no! Dillon Dingler floated a single into centre, scoring Torres and Carpenter.
Zach McKinstry followed with a sharp single to right to score Torkelson, and Javier Báez followed with a double off the third-base bag, scoring Dingler; McKinstry got thrown out at home for the third out, but when the dust settled the Tigers were up 5-0 early.
Things settled down for a while, but in the top of the third Torkelson led off with a single; after Pérez walked, Dingler struck again with a double to score Torkelson and push Pérez up to third.
Pérez was cashed-in on a Báez sacrifice fly off Old Friend™ José Ureña, and the Tigers were up a touchdown on the Twins.
Morton danced with a little trouble early on, including walking the first batter of the bottom of the fourth and hitting the second. A groundout left runners on the corners with one out, and he got Royce Lewis to foul out for the second out; a harmless grounder to first got the Tigers out of the inning unscathed. He ended up finishing six innings, surrendering only a pair of hits, no runs, three walks and five whiffs.
The final out of the top of the seventh was an unusual one, to say the least. Torkelson had walked with two outs and was off at the crack of Pérez’s bat, but the line drive hit Torkelson, which meant he was out. Now that’s something you don’t see every day.
Tommy Kahnle took over for Morton for the seventh, and yes, he’s had his troubles lately. But, darnit, the guy threw a scoreless, drama-free inning (while walking one) and his changeup-mojo was working.
Brant Hurter, whose last appearance saw him walk three in 2/3 of an inning, struck out the first batter he faced, Trevor Larnach, on a pitch that hit him. Walks have been a big, big problem for Hurter this season, after only walking six in 45 1/3 innings down the stretch for the Tigers last year. Like his predecessor, he threw an inning, walked a guy, but didn’t give up any runs.
The low-leverage relief-pitcher parade continued with Bailey Horn, making his third appearance for the Tigers this season. He walked the first two he faced, but an infield fly marked the first out. A liner to shortstop precipitated a nifty unassisted double play by Trey Sweeney, and that was the game. Bada-boom-bada-bing.
Final score: Tigers 7, Twins 0
Let’s talk about bullpens; namely, that of the Tigers. Much has been made of its shakiness over the past couple of months, but perhaps things have turned a corner. In the seven games coming into tonight, the Tiger bullpen threw 28 innings and gave up 16 hits, 10 earned runs, walked 11 and struck out 23, for an ERA of 3.21.That’s not too bad, but if you Porcello-out the August 12 game in which Brant Hurter, Codi Heuer and Tommy Kahnle stunk up the joint, those numbers get even nicer: 24 1/3 IP, 11 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 19 K, for an ERA of 1.85.Kyle Finnegan has been a nice addition: in 6 2/3 innings coming into tonight, he’d given up exactly one hit, walked one and struck out eight. I can dig it.On this day in 1859, Charles Comiskey was born. Those of us of a certain age remember Comiskey Park, the longtime home of the Chicago White Sox; it was indeed named after this fellow, who owned the team from 1901 to 1931, when the stadium was built. Before that he managed and played going back to 1882, so he had quite a tenure in the game. It has been speculated that the eight “Black Sox” players who helped to throw the 1919 World Series only did so because Comiskey was so cheap as a team owner, gamblers’ money looked pretty attractive to them.