CLEVELAND – The game was like a bus station during a transit strike. Stranded riders everywhere. The Detroit Tigers left two men on base in the first inning, another in the third, a pair in the fourth, two more in the fifth, two more in the sixth, two more in the seventh, another in the eighth. You began to wonder if home plate was booby-trapped.
Did anybody want to win this game on Wednesday, Oct. 1? The Tigers, who ended numerous innings with strikeouts, couldn’t bring anyone around, and Cleveland couldn’t put anybody on. Through seven innings, the Guardians only had two hits, and nobody was in scoring position. They rarely got the ball into the outfield.
But blow enough chances, let the other team hang around, and you get what happened in the eighth inning at Progressive Field, when the score was tied 1-1. Detroit reliever Troy Melton sent a fastball down the pipe and Brayan Rocchio, a .233 hitter this year who’d spent part of the season in the minors, smacked it over the right-field wall for a go-ahead home run.
The Tigers would never catch up.
Bad things come to those who wait.
“It was a tough day,” A.J. Hinch would conclude when this 6-1 defeat was over. “Obviously, they made the most of their opportunities, and we left 15 guys on. I think that paints the picture.”
Yep. Clear as the blue sky that backdropped this beautiful October afternoon. The Guardians would stick back-to-back doubles on Melton, another run would cross, Brant Hurter would relieve Melton and give up a three-run homer to Bo Naylor, and a tie game was suddenly a blowout.
The Tigers have now joined the Guardians with their heads in the guillotine.
Somebody gets it chopped off in Game 3 on Thursday.
Tigers’ unlucky No. 15
Be honest. You saw this defeat coming. In playoff baseball, you simply don’t get the number of opportunities the Tigers had and not take advantage. How many left on base? Fifteen? That’s enough runs to win three games, especially against the Guardians, who generally treat scoring like a communicable disease.
Cleveland even tried to give the Tigers some offense. The Guardians had an error in the first inning and a bobbled ball, but the Tigers couldn’t capitalize. In the ninth, Cleveland committed an error and a hit a batter to let the Tigers load the bases.
But typical to this game and this series, in the final at-bat, Dillon Dingler lined out to first base. Three more Detroit baserunners jogged slowly into the dugout instead of crossing the plate.
Stranded.
“It was a hard-fought game,” Hinch said. “The score doesn’t really indicate how the game was. … We kept giving ourselves a chance. (But) the last at-bat was ending poorly a lot of times with (strikeouts.) It’s not easy. They’ve got good pitching.”
That’s true. And 15 left on base is an anomaly. You’d have to be really talented to do that again. But more troubling than one game like this is two games like this, and the truth is, the Tigers also barely scored in Game 1. Had Cleveland not handed them runs with errors, even Tarik Skubal might not have been enough to win that one.
Which brings us to another obvious point. If Skubal is as sure a thing as rain in the Amazon, then the Tigers’ relief pitching is about as predictable as a hurricane. On Thursday, Hinch used four relievers after pulling starter Casey Mize in the fourth inning. Detroit has won some games that way this year, and lost some the same way.
Wednesday, it bit them. And now the season comes down to Game 3 starter Jack Flaherty, who might as well be wearing one of those opera masks that has a smile on one side and a frown on the other.
Who knows what aria he’s going to sing?
Guardians’ patience pays off
“Strange things happen in October,” Hinch said after this one was over, and there was plenty of strange in Game 2.
in the fourth inning, with two outs and the bases loaded, Javy Baez smacked a single up the middle. Riley Greene raced in to score and so did Dillon Dingler, while Zach McKinstry huffed it from first to third. A throw came in from center field as McKinstry slid into the bag. He was called safe, and suddenly, the Tigers had a 2-1 lead.
And then they didn’t. Replays showed that McKinstry was tagged just before he touched the bag, which meant the third out. And since it happened before Dingler reached the plate, his run didn’t count.
So even when the Tigers scored, they didn’t.
Later, in the seventh inning. Hinch pulled Greene out of the game to pinch hit Jahmai Jones (who struck out.) The thinking was righty (Jones) versus lefty (Cleveland reliever Tim Herrin), but it was only the seventh, Greene is Detroit’s home-run and RBI leader, and runs, as noted, have been terribly hard to come by in this series.
“I have no need to go to talk to Riley about it,” Hinch said. “Our players know how we’re built, what we’re trying to do. There’s immense trust amongst all of us.”
Good to know. Especially since, in the bottom of the ninth, Greene would have had an at-bat with two men on. Instead, pinch-hitter Justyn-Henry Malloy struck out.
And so the best-of-three series is tied, and one of these unbelievable storylines (Tigers collapse, Guardians catch fire) will end Thursday afternoon.
Patience in a good thing. Too much is not. Urgency is needed by these Tigers. Not pressing, but urgent. The famous expression is “Seize the day.” Not “Wait until next inning.”
“Our players are all in,” Hinch said, emphasizing the positive. “I’m gonna go make sure our clubhouse music is on, make sure we’re pretty upbeat, make sure we realize that we have an opportunity to win the series tomorrow.”
They do. But two games, three runs, and 21 men left on base? Strange things happen in October, but something more normal needs to happen for the Tigers to move on.
It’s called knocking runners in.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.
0 Comments