Andrew Graham
| Special to The Detroit News
Detroit — It took until the fifth inning against the Giants on Memorial Day, but the fireworks arrived. Except at first, they weren’t run-scoring kind.
Upset with a called third strike on a ball that was low and out of the zone on a full count, Tigers center fielder Javy Baez voiced his complaints to home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi. Cuzzi responded. Baez retorted. They went back and forth, and then Cuzzi seemed to finally signal to the Tigers center fielder: Go back to your dugout.
Baez didn’t oblige, got ejected and the real fracas began. Baez went ballistic, as Gleyber Torres and third base coach Joey Cora swooped in to restrain him — with great effort — from further accosting Cuzzi, who was now face-to-face with manager AJ Hinch.
Whether the home plate fracas spurred on the Tigers, discomfited the Giants or just snapped folks awake, the Baez ejection proved to be the inflection point Monday, as the Tigers immediately followed it up with two runs in a 3-1 win over the Giants at Comerica Park.
“It’s not even about the call, it’s about how he treated me,” Baez said postgame. “I’m not an animal. We can talk, we can argue. And that’s it. If you’re going to (say), ‘OK, I missed it,’ I would’ve (said), ‘OK’ and go out (to center field). Because we’re competing. And I know he’s not perfect. Don’t treat me like that.”
Four batters after the melee had been averted, Detroit went ahead 3-0 on a two-RBI single from Riley Greene.
That fifth-inning spurt would be enough on a day where Keider Montero made a spot start and went five innings, allowing just one hit and no runs before giving way to a solid four innings of work from the Detroit bullpen. And while the day resulted in a win for Detroit, the main topic of conversation for Hinch and in the clubhouse postgame was the ejection.
“Where he got heated was after he got ejected and how he was dismissed,” Hinch said.
And prior to Baez blowing his stack, things had been mundane.
Through the first few innings, both teams were searching — and failing to find — any sort of significant offensive threat.
The biggest early-game chance came for the Giants, who managed two men on and one out in the top of the first. But Montero induced a ground ball that became a fielder’s choice to get the second out, then struck out Willy Adames looking on an outer-half slider.
After that early threat, Montero didn’t allow a baserunner for the rest of his outing. For Montero and catcher Dillon Dingler, it was just a matter of attacking the strike zone while he was in the game.
“My focus was to attack the hitters, attack the hitters all the time, take advantage of the pitch count so I could go that far and keep the score that low,” Montero said, via a translator.
But the Tigers’ offensive wasn’t clicking early, either.
Colt Keith reached with two outs in the first on a double but got stranded at second base. And in the second inning, Spencer Torkelson walked before getting stranded at first. The Tigers went down in order in the third before finally breaking through against Hayden Birdsong in the fourth.
Keith led off this time, ripping a single up the middle on a liner. After Greene struck out swinging, Torkelson continued his strong offensive season, getting his bat around a 3-1 slider and flinging it into left field for a single. Following a Zach McKinstry lineout, Dingler roped a two-out single into left-center that scored Keith, pushing Detroit ahead, 1-0.
“I knew he’d probably either go fastball up or curveball down,” Dingler said. “He hadn’t thrown me a slider all day. So I was kind of anticipating those two. I saw it hop and it stayed up just enough for me to get a little bit of it.”
Dingler and Torkelson both advanced to second and third, respectively, on an error at the plate as the ball got to the backstop, but that threat ended before either could score.
And after Detroit had done its scoring in the fourth and fifth innings, San Francisco did manage to claw one back, in the top of the sixth, as Hinch went to the bullpen.
First Tyler Holton came on and got one out before giving up a pair of singles. Then on came Brenan Hanifee, who gave up an RBI-single before generating an inning-ending double play on a ground ball. Beau Brieske then threw a clean seventh inning, Tommy Kahnle came on for the eighth and got three outs without trouble before giving way to Will Vest, who polished off the Giants in the top of the ninth.
And while it turned into the main event on Monday, Hinch and Baez were generally mum on what, exactly, was said to set of Baez so angrily.
Hinch alluded to a “short temper” for the umpire, resulting in the ejection, which Hinch didn’t think was warranted at that point. Baez had been chasing out of the zone earlier in that at-bat and one prior, Hinch said, and he wasn’t making any point of arguing with the umpire. Hinch also apportioned some blame on himself, saying that had he inserted himself into the moment faster, Baez might not have been ejected.
Hinch added that Cuzzi said something to Baez and the Tigers hitter said something back, after the ejection had already sent things spiraling.
“I know what Javy said afterward, and I know what he said,” Hinch said. “So it was kind of a little more of an old-school approach behind the plate. As the player was walking off, he felt like he gave him a chance, which is what he told me, and just set off an argument.”
And Baez, for his part, made one thing thoroughly clear during his brief remarks to reporters postgame: He wants a fairer shake than how readily he was dismissed Monday.
“That’s why I got so mad, because you don’t have to throw me out, because I’m asking you — because I’m saying something about the strike zone,” Baez said. “I was not even close to swinging at that pitch. And it’s not even about the call, it’s about the competition. … I make my adjustment, I win the battle and then he messed it up.”
And while the win certainly makes things a bit more palatable for Baez, he was certainly not ready to forgive and forget just a few hours later.
“Good, obviously good,” Baez said of the rest of the inning and the win. “I was pissed, and I’m still pissed.”
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