Arlington, Texas — It’s been a while since the vibe in the Tigers’ clubhouse has been this subdued. No music. No chatter. Hardly anyone sticking around.
“It hurts,” Spencer Torkelson said after the Tigers’ season-long losing streak hit six games Saturday night. “It sucks. Losing sucks whether it’s one game or six. It sucks. But, you know, stay with it. It’s a long season. We didn’t want anything to happen like this but we kind of know, in a long season anything can happen.”
The Texas Rangers beat the Tigers for the second straight night, 4-1 at Globe Life Field. Riley Greene’s 25th home run, leading off the ninth inning, is the only run they’ve mustered so far this series.
“We’re one swing away from turning things around and getting more rhythm as an offense,” Torkelson said. “For the first 90 games, it seemed like we were getting that one hit every night. Not getting it now for a couple of games isn’t the end of the world. But we need to start making better swings and have better pitch selection.”
On Friday night, lefty Patrick Corbin put Tigers hitters in a vice. On Saturday, right-hander Kumar Rocker shut them down, allowing only one hit in 6.1 innings.
That one hit, a single by Wenceel Perez, came with two outs in the sixth.
“We had a hard time getting the ball off the ground against Rocker,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “And we punched out quite a bit. It felt like we had a little bit of traffic but we didn’t do much with our walks.”
The Tigers had Rocker seemingly on the ropes in the fourth. The Rangers were up 3-0 after Rowdy Tellez ambushed a 3-0 fastball from Keider Montero with two on in the second inning and sent it 432 feet into the Rangers’ bullpen.
But Rocker walked Gleyber Torres and Perez to start the fourth inning, throwing 13 pitches and only one in the strike zone. But even as his pitch count got over 30 in the inning, he was able to strand those two runners, getting Greene, Torkelson and Zach McKinstry.
Highlights from Tigers’ 4-1 loss to the Texas Rangers
“First and second and to end with nothing is a tough way to go,” Hinch said. “It felt like if we could’ve advanced the runners and chip away and create a little bit of pressure at that point — the game can be over at any point but getting back in the game right there might’ve changed the direction of the game.”
Rocker stymied the Tigers, primarily, with cutters and sinkers. He got eight whiffs on 28 swings with the cutter and eight called strikes with the sinker.
He also mixed in four-seamers, change-ups and sliders, the total package effectively keeping balls off the barrel. The 15 balls the Tigers put in play against Rocker had an average exit velocity of 82.6 mph. He got nine ground ball outs.
BOX SCORE: Rangers 4, Tigers 1
The Tigers managed four hits Friday, all singles, and they had just two singles Saturday until Greene ambushed a first-pitch fastball from reliever Jacob Webb. This from a team that had at least one extra base hit in 38 straight games going into the break.
“We’re mad and frustrated and we want to do better,” Hinch said. “We’re getting tested a little bit. But it’s a season. This is baseball. At this level, when you don’t quite do enough in any aspect, the game isn’t going to reward you.”
The six-game skid is the longest for the Tigers since they lost nine straight in June of 2023. And the fact that they are still 19 games over .500 and have a comfortable lead in the Central Division doesn’t make it easier to swallow.
“Yeah, we have a little bit of wriggle room,” Torkelson said. “But you don’t want to get complacent and think about losses to give. We want to win every single day.”
The Tigers did catch one break. The Rangers announced after the game that ace right-hander Nathan Eovaldi was scratched from his scheduled start on Sunday because of back soreness. Instead, the Tigers will face lefty Jacob Latz, whose made just two spot starts this season.
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