CLEVELAND — Before Saturday’s opener in this ALDS, Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch predicted their magic carpet ride would eventually hit a thundercloud.
“Somebody,” he said, “is going to punch you in the mouth at some point.”
Pow! Those spinning Tigers’ eyeballs were courtesy of the first five Cleveland batters Saturday all reaching base — the last of them, Lane Thomas, cracking a hanging slider nearly 400 feet into the left-field seats for a three-run homer and a 5-0 lead.
If this were a movie scene, they’d have shouted “Wrap!” If Howard Cosell were calling it, it’d have been “Down goes Detroit!” When you fall behind five runs before recording an out, you can kind of tell it’s not your day.
“We never recovered,” Hinch would say.
Now, it’s true, for a game often accused of taking too long to be over within the first few minutes is kind of ironic. But this was more than a big early lead in a baseball playoff. The Tigers were facing a division winner that, having sat for six days, was chomping at the bit to show its stuff to its roaring hometown fans. And had its best pitcher, Tanner Bibee, on the mound. Cleveland is a team that wins by scraping runs together, pushing starters to the sixth inning, then saying “good night” by letting the best bullpen in baseball take over.
On Saturday, their formula worked perfectly. Detroit starter Tyler Holton (and we use “starter” loosely with this team) gave up a leadoff double, walked the next batter, allowed a run on a tough hopper that caromed off of third baseman Zach McKinstry for an error, then surrendered a single.
Hinch gave the wave. Holton’s day was done. Two hits. A walk. Two runs allowed. No outs.
As ominous signs go, that’s a black cat. A cracked mirror. Walking under a ladder.
“They landed a first good punch,” Holton would admit.
Pow.
‘Bullpen chaos’ beats ‘pitching chaos’
The Tigers might have survived that two-run deficit. But when Thomas stepped in and swung at Reese Olson’s first pitch, sending it into the seats for a 5-0 lead, Cleveland’s odds of winning went to 91%, if you like those new-age metrics. Those of us who have simply seen a ton of baseball could feel a Detroit comeback was unlikely.
“I mean, sometimes their guy beats our guy,” Hinch said after the 7-0 shellacking was over. “Reese was ready. … We can’t fault really anybody other than a good swing on a pitch that changed the game.”
Olson later said he hung a slider and Thomas jumped on it. Thomas, for his part, said he was looking for a fastball. Whatever. Ball met bat. Ball went over wall. Three runs in.
To his credit, Olson stayed out there and pitched five full innings, surrendering only two more hits and striking out four.
But if Hinch’s mix-and-match starters is called “pitching chaos,” then the Guardians employ “bullpen chaos.” They rolled four relievers out there Saturday: Cade Smith, Tim Herron, Hunter Gaddis and super-closer Emmanuel Clase. Collectively, they struck out seven Tigers.
And didn’t surrender a hit.
Pow.
‘We’re still standing’
Now, there are many reasons not to fret over this defeat. The first is Tarik Skubal, MLB’s best pitcher this year, who starts for the Tigers in Game 2 on Monday. We won’t say he’s tough to beat, but it’s a good thing it’s not a night game. He’s usually lights out.
The second is that the Tigers were due for a game like this. They went 10-1 down the stretch to clinch a playoff spot, took a breath in two meaningless games against the White Sox, then stormed back to sweep the Astros in a series that was over so fast, I think some Houston fans are still arriving at the ballpark.
“You can’t keep winning like that day after day, right?” I asked Holton.
“I mean, you can,” he said, “But it‘s baseball. It’s hard to win every day. … We’re still standing. We’ll fight back.”
Baseball gurus always talk about getting the first batter out. The Tigers didn’t do that in the first three innings Saturday. They need to clean that up on Monday. And their 13 strikeouts in Game 1 can’t be a harbinger of this series, or we’ll be back to rooting solely for the Lions by the weekend.
In boxing, they call it a rematch. In baseball, it’s simply the next game. Hinch called that Thomas home run “a punch we didn’t recover from.” But this is a young team. Bruises heal quickly.
Or, to twist an old phrase, “Pow today, gone tomorrow.”
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom.
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