There were some good takeaways from this one, but a couple of rough relief performances sank the kitties.
One very bad, no good inning sank the Detroit Tigers in their road matchup against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday. Their record falls to 2-4, but hey it’s Spring Training so no one cares.
The point is get into game shape, and key rotation member Reese Olson made his first start of spring camp in this one. His command wasn’t that sharp, but most notably the right-hander sat 96 mph throughout his two innings of work. That’s pretty close to peak velocity for Olson in his prior two seasons. Probably he was airing it out knowing he was only going to pitch two innings, but that’s still a positive sign for his first outing.
Olson struck out two and showed some good sliders and changeups, but he left a 1-0 changeup up in the zone to Daulton Varsho with one out in the first, and the outfielder golfed a high fly over the right field wall. A 1-2 slider down in the zone to the next hitter, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., got blasted out to center field for a solo shot as well, and the Tigers were down 2-0 early. Olson bounced back with a clean second inning.
This game marked the return of shortstop Javier Báez, though he was the designated hitter as the Tigers work him back into action. Báez grounded out, walked, and struck out in his three trips to the plate. Overall, the Tigers regulars haven’t swung the bats well in the early going, but it’s not unusual at all for hitters to be a little behind the curve in their timing early in camp.
Like Riley Greene, one who already seems close to midseason form is Kerry Carpenter. Playing left field in this one, Carpenter flared a single to center to lead off the second inning. In the fourth, Justyn-Henry Malloy, playing first base, led off with a walk and rode home on a rocket at 107.7 mph to right center field from Carpenter. That was his first of the spring.
With the game now tied at 2-2, things completely came unglued in the bottom of the fourth. Chase Lee was rocked for four runs, and when Sean Guenther entered the game, two were already on the board with two on base. Guenther allowed them both to score, and then took a beating of his own as the Blue Jays went on to score eight in the inning. Dylan Smith had to enter the game to get them out of the inning, which he did.
In the fifth, the kids got in on the action and helped the Tigers claw their way back into the game. Facing Yariel Rodriguez, Eddys Leonard, playing second base in this one, drew a leadoff walk. Starting right fielder Roberto Campos, coming off an encouraging season at High-A West Michigan, smoked a double to center field to get Leonard to third. Trey Sweeney popped out, but Báez put together a solid at-bat and walked to load the bases. A two-run single from Malloy followed, and after Carpenter popped out, Dillon Dingler spanked a two-run double to make it 10-6 Blue Jays.
Lefty Dietrich Enns handled the fifth and sixth, and then the first two outs of the seventh as well for the Tigers, and looked pretty good. He issued a pair of walks, but struck out four, allowing no hits. Reliever Andrew Magno got a pop-up to end the seventh.
Justice Bigbie led off the eighth with a single, and with two-outs, outfielder Patrick Lee roasted a triple the opposite way into the right field corner to make it 10-7.
Lee was signed last spring as an undrafted free agent out of the Frontier League where he played with the Evansville Otters. Lee is 25 already, so the odds of him really figuring it out at the plate aren’t great, but he has plenty of speed and raw power. We can hope for a late bloomer there.
The Tigers will host the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday at 1:05 p.m. Casey Mize will take on Aaron Nola in that one. The game is slated for a radio broadcast only.