Detroit — Manager AJ Hinch, maybe getting a little weary of answering questions about the magnitude of this series with the Guardians, finally summed it up like this:
“It’s cool and it doesn’t matter.”
Both things can be true.
The Guardians, who broke the Tigers’ hearts in Game 5 of the ALDS last October, drew first blood in the new season.
They took the first game of a four-game series in the rain at Comerica Park Thursday, beating the Tigers 7-0 behind the stellar pitching of right-hander Tanner Bibee.
“The weather sucked, but you have to look past that,” said Tigers’ catcher Dillon Dingler. “I felt like Tanner kept us off balance all day. He threw a good one. Have to tip your cap for that. We’ll turn the page and look forward to tomorrow.”
BOX SCORE: Guardians 7, Tigers 0
The whole tip your cap thing, Hinch couldn’t quite go all the way there.
“They did a good job and I don’t want to discredit them at all,” he said. “But they got one more hit and seven more runs than we did. So it doesn’t tell the whole story if I just tip my cap.”
There were two critical swings in the game, fatal swings from the Tigers’ point of view.
Bibee allowed only three hits in his seven innings, all singles. Two of them came in the third inning, singles by Dingler and Javier Báez. But Bibee punched out Kerry Carpenter and got Gleyber Torres to line out to center.
Torres came out of the game after that and was evaluated for lower right leg discomfort.
“He looked uncomfortable coming out of the box,” Hinch said. “He didn’t really run and said he felt something in his lower leg. We talked through the pros and cons of him going back on defense. He was just uncomfortable enough that I pulled him out of the game and got him evaluated.
“I need to talk to the docs and figure out the extent.”
Bibee, smartly mixing sweepers, changeups, cutters, sinkers and curveballs off 94-mph four-seamers, finished with eight strikeouts.
Tigers’ starter Jack Flaherty matched Bibee in the hit column, but two of the three hits he allowed flipped the game.
With two on and one out in the fourth, Carlos Santana, hitting left-handed, jumped a 3-1 slider that was barely on the outside corner and pulled it into the right-center field gap, scoring two runs.
“He’s a good hitter,” said Flaherty, who also struck out eight, including the 1,000th of his career. “If the pitch was down and he tries to pull it, then it’s probably a ground ball. But because it was up, he was able to get a barrel to it and put it in the gap. Just a veteran hitter.”
Angel Martinez led off the fifth with a solo homer to right, the 11th allowed by Flaherty this season.
“Jack was pretty good,” Hinch said. “It was tough to pitch at the beginning of the game (with the steady rain falling) and both Bibee and Jack did a good job fighting the conditions.”
Flaherty went 6.2 innings and threw 108 pitches, the most by a Tigers’ pitcher since Tarik Skubal threw 108 on June 28, 2022.
“With where our bullpen was, coming off a pen game (Wednesday in St. Louis), the length Jack gave us was super important,” Hinch said. “But he was pitching well. It wasn’t just that he was eating innings, he was landing his pitches and didn’t get a lot to show for it.”
About that other fatal swing:
The Tigers mounted a very unusual rally in the eighth. They loaded the bases against lefty reliever Tim Herrin on a walk to Trey Sweeney, an infield single by Báez and a single by pinch-hitter Justyn-Henry Malloy on a ball center fielder Lane Thomas lost in the lights.
The Guardians brought in right-handed fireballer Cade Smith. You might remember him from the ALDS. He bullied the Tigers over 6.1 relief innings, allowing a run and two hits with 12 strikeouts.
Same story, different season.
Mixing 88-mph splitters and 98-mph four-seamers, Smith struck out pinch-hitter Akil Baddoo, Zach McKinstry and Riley Greene. They combined for 11 swings and whiffed on seven.
“Bases loaded, no outs and Cade Smith comes in and we can’t score,” Hinch said. “Then they put four across and it changes the whole complexion of how they use their pen.”
The Guardians blew the game open with those four runs in the top of the ninth. Lefty Sean Guenther, after a scoreless eighth, hit Santana in the foot and walked Daniel Schneemann. Bo Naylor then laid down a bunt that Guenther fielded quickly and cleanly and made a head-high throw to third base.
McKinstry, though, missed the throw. One run scored and then, off right-hander John Brebbia, Angel Martinez sliced a two-run double to left and Thomas lofted a sacrifice fly to center.
“We’re going to play them a lot,” Dingler said. “It’s going to be big to get the upper hand on them these next few games. We’ve lost the first game of a series before. It’s going to be tough. That’s a good team. But, like I said, turn the page and move forward.”
Flaherty’s 1,000th career strikeout was a beauty. It came in the first inning and his victim was Jose Ramirez. He got strike one with a knuckle-curve and strike two with a changeup (Ramirez lost his bat on the swing). Flaherty then froze him with a 95-mph four-seamer.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” Flaherty said. “It’s cool to hear, cool to finally get to. But probably that’s something I will think about later.”
Hinch’s efforts to keep this series in perspective are right and just, of course, especially after taking it on the chin Thursday.
“This hasn’t been circled on a calendar,” Hinch said. “It’s not something that is the end-all, be-all. It’s part of the schedule. We know we’re going to play them again.”
Guardians’ manager Stephen Vogt echoed Hinch’s sentiments about a four-game series in May, divisional, rivalry or otherwise.
“I haven’t looked at the standings yet,” he said. “We play 162 games. Every time you play a divisional opponent it’s a big series and we look at every game as a playoff game no matter who we are playing.”
@cmccosky
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