Detroit — Remember at the beginning of the month when the Tigers were scoring 10 runs or more seemingly every other game?
That was fun.
The end of the month is proving to be less fertile for the offense.
A sixth-inning solo home run by Spencer Torkelson was the only thing standing between the Tigers and back-to-back shutouts, as the Guardians beat them for a second straight night at Comerica Park, 3-1, on Friday.
“We’re going to lose some games,” said Javier Báez, whose double in the seventh was the only hit the Tigers got against the Guardians’ leverage relievers Hunter Gaddis and Emmanuel Clase. “As long as we’re playing good, we’re going to lose fighting, you know? But the game gets out of hand, that’s when we’ve got to worry.
“But we’re playing good baseball right now.”
It’s just the second time this month that they’ve lost back-to-back games and the second time all season they’ve lost two straight at home (both to the Texas Rangers).
The Tigers were held in check for six innings by right-hander Slade Cecconi, who was making his second start of the season after returning from an oblique injury.
He stranded runners in scoring position in four of those innings, before Torkelson launched his 13th homer, a 405-footer that cleared the bullpen in left.
The Tigers were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
“We had a really hard time early getting multiple things to happen,” manager AJ Hinch said. “Then when we did, first and third and one out (in the fourth), we couldn’t cash in a run. Even just one run there would’ve sort of decompressed the whole game.”
BOX SCORE: Guardians 3, Tigers 1
Hinch was asked if he was disappointed in his team’s approach offensively, just two walks with nine strikeouts, 23 swings and misses and 18 called strikes.
“Disappointed is such an aggressive word on how you feel about your players,” he said. “Like, these guys are battling. They’re not feeling great. It’s not an excuse. We’re trying.”
Hinch kept two offensive leaders out of the lineup — Riley Greene and Zach McKinstry — because of some physical wear and tear issues. A flu bug has gone through the clubhouse in the past couple of weeks and the club is in the midst of their second stretch of playing 23 games in 24 days.
“We tried to be more aggressive with Cecconi,” Hinch said. “He threw a ton of strikes and beat us. But I’m in the trenches with these guys and they’re doing everything they can. It’s been a couple of game of quiet offensive production.
“We’ll be just fine.”
Gaddis took over in the seventh inning and worked around Báez’s double and pitched a clean eighth inning.
The Guardians handed closer Clase a two-run lead in the ninth and there was no drama.
“We’ve been playing so good,” Báez said. “We lost the first two to Cleveland but we’re going to come back and fight again tomorrow.”
Another messy first inning for rookie Jackson Jobe had the Tigers playing uphill again. It also shortened his outing by an inning or two.
Steven Kwan led off the game with a well-placed double down the line in right and scored on a triple to center field by Jose Ramirez. With two outs, Carlos Santana rolled a broken-bat single into left field to bring Ramirez home.
“You just try to keep it simple and attack the zone,” said Jobe, who took his first loss of the season. “That first inning they hit some balls that got down, I guess you can say, and scored some runs. I just continued to trust my stuff and the let the defense work.
“It’s not the best I’ve felt physically all year, that’s for sure. But I felt like battled well.”
Jobe has allowed 10 runs in the first inning of his 10 starts this season, with opponents hitting .375 (15 for 40).
“Very frustrating first inning,” he said. “I gave up an 88-mph (exit velocity) double and a broken-bat RBI. That’s going to happen sometimes. I like to think it’s going to even out. But it was very frustrating, especially to start the game like that.”
Jobe allowed just one hit the rest of the way, though he had to navigate around two walks and a hit-batsman to keep the deficit at two through five innings.
Facing a lineup of eight left-handed hitters, Jobe effectively leaned on his changeup. He got seven whiffs on 11 swings at it and some soft-contact outs.
The Guardians did their damage against his upper-90s four-seamer. They put 11 fastballs in play with an average exit velocity of 91.5 mph, including Kwan’s double and Ramirez’s triple.
“I was really proud of Jackson for how he responded,” Hinch said. “It’s a different lineup with eight of the nine being left-handed. It brings in the breaking ball. It brings in the command. The fastballs that were getting early was because he would get ahead and then let them back into the count and get behind after he got ahead and they did a good job of putting the ball in play — which is their calling card.”
The Tigers’ bullpen kept it a one-run game through the eighth. Lefty Tyler Holton got five straight outs before giving up a single to Kwan. Righty Beau Brieske finished the seventh and left with two on and two outs in the eighth.
Righty Chase Lee, clutch, punched out Gabriel Arias to end that threat.
The Guardians tacked on the third run in the ninth. Right-fielder Kerry Carpenter misplayed a single by Bo Naylor into a triple and he scored on Kwan’s third hit of the game.
“They do a really good job of getting into the game on both sides of the ball,” Hinch said. “We have not been able to answer that. And obviously playing catchup from beginning and not making it hard on their starter is a tough way to live against Cleveland. They have a path to a win with a lot of good arms.”
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