Will Detroit Tigers run away with AL Central?
The Days of Roar podcast breaks down the competition the Detroit Tigers face in the AL Central. Can the Tigers maintain first place in the division?
ST. LOUIS — The Detroit Tigers just took two of three games from one of the hottest teams in baseball and did it using only one starting pitcher. Talk about pitching chaos.
Or baseball chaos. Call it whatever you like.
All the Tigers care about is stacking wins — and stacking series — and now the MLB-leading Tigers (33-17) get to return home, where they’ll meet the defending AL Central champion Cleveland Guardians for the first time this season.
The Tigers have been on the road for most of May, with 16 of their last 22 games away from Comerica Park. That they keep finding ways to win on the road is as impressive as any part of this start.
The Tigers lost the series opener to the St. Louis Cardinals in an 11-4 blowout and looked impatient at the plate. They responded with two clutch wins, the last a 5-1 run on Wednesday, May 21, in the rubber match.
Here’s what they did at Busch Stadium in their third game against the Cardinals:
Drew a few walks — more than a few, actually.
Took a few extra bases — and maybe tried to take a few too many.
Safely hit, for the most part, at the opportune time — including an eighth-inning sacrifice fly that finally gave the Tigers the insurance run they’d been chasing for several innings.
And when Javier Báez ripped a single in the eighth to add another insurance run? Well, folks like to call that winning baseball.
It’s also (mostly) smart baseball, and on a day when runs weren’t coming from the long ball, and with the bullpen making a start, that has to be the blueprint.
Speaking of the bullpen
Left-hander Brant Hurter threw three masterful innings to “start” the game. The reliever has been efficient for the better part of six weeks, with a sub-1.50 ERA over 18 innings pitched during that span.
The 6-foot-6 lefty is mostly a two-pitch artist, and he used his sweeper and sinker to hold the Cardinals to one hit in three innings. He struck out two.
Right-hander Chase Lee followed Hurter and threw two scoreless innings. He didn’t give up a hit. Like Hurter, Lee is a sweeper-dominant pitcher, and his sidearm delivery makes it harder for hitters — especially fellow righties — to pick up on his release.
Sean Guenther was next. The lefty hasn’t been as sharp this season but after giving up a single to Victor Scott II to begin the bottom of the sixth inning, Guenther struck out the pesky Masyn Winn after an eight-pitch battle.
And then he somehow managed to keep one of the hottest hitters in the National League from going yard, even though Brendan Donovan came close when he ripped a 78-mph slider to the far edge of the warning track in right-center.
Manager A.J. Hinch called in Brenan Hanifee for the final out. The right-hander, pitching for the second time in two days, gave up a single to Willson Contreras, and Scott scored, making it 3-1. Then Hanifee shut down any notion of a rally by throwing heat to Ivan Herrera and coaxing a grounder to third.
They’d survived the meat of the order and escaped the seventh when Hanifee gave way to Tyler Holton and Holton struck out Jordan Walker and got a flyout from Scott with runners at second and third.
Beau Brieske handled the eighth and ninth innings.
Meanwhile, on the base paths …
Patience and aggression
In the second inning, Riley Greene pushed it down the third-base line for a leadoff single. Spencer Torkelson followed with a ground-ball single up the right side. Greene took third from first.
Colt Keith hit a sacrifice fly. Greene tagged and scored. Torkelson inexplicably tried to take second at the same time and was thrown out.
But then, the Tigers love to be aggressive on the base path. In fact, Torkelson was thrown out again in the sixth inning, trying to score from third when Dillon Dingler got caught in a rundown between first and second.
That was the proper move though, and it took a heads-up play to break away from the rundown and get Torkelson before he got to the plate.
As for patience? In the fourth, Greene drew a two-out walk from 1-2 down. He took three straight balls and the first was just off the plate. Andre Pallante didn’t want to mess with the red-hot hitter.
Yet here came Torkelson, who corked a middle-high fastball to the opposite field, just beyond the glove of a lunging Walker. Greene scored. Torkelson got to second easily.
The combo keeps showing why it’s the engine of the offense.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
(This story was updated to add a photo gallery.)