Tigers 1, Guardians 0: Another nail-biting win

An early solo home run would be all the scoring in this one.

After a tight series-opening win on Friday night in Cleveland, the Detroit Tigers looked to lock down the series win on Saturday night… which they did in another low-scoring affair, a 1-0 victory behind some sensational pitching.

Making his fifteenth start of the season for the Detroiters was Casey Mize. He’s achieved great results this year: coming into tonight he had a 2.86 ERA and the Tigers were 10-4 in games he’d started. However, I couldn’t help but notice that his FIP (fielding-independent pitching; basically, the ERA with an average defence behind him) was a full run higher at 3.88. He’s been a flyball pitcher this year — 30.5% fly balls vs. the MLB average of 25.5% — and pitching half his games at Comerica Park have certainly helped in those regards… but Cleveland’s outfield is much smaller. That helped him out at least once, as you’ll see.

Speaking of Cleveland, said team’s starting pitcher was lefty Logan T. Allen — as opposed to Logan S. Allen, who also pitched for Cleveland from 2019-22, departing a year before the current iteration of Logan Allens made his Guardians debut. Is there some weird clause in their stadium lease that says “Thou shalt have at least one Logan Allen on thine roster” or something? At any rate, the current one has been decent, although not overpowering so far this year: a 4.27 ERA, a WHIP of 1.487, 6.9 K/9 innings and 3.9 BB/9. He’s limited the damage by only allowing nine home runs in 78 innings coming into tonight, and this year has gotten drastically better in limiting right-handed hitters’ power.

Scary moment in the first inning: Gleyber Torres, who had walked with one out, was sliding into second base and ended up making the third out on a force play on a grounder hit by Riley Greene. On the play, Torres ended up taking a forearm and elbow to the right side of his neck and jaw from Brayan Rocchio, who also fell on Torres after the initial collision; Torres was out with a contusion, and we wish him all the best.

Spencer Torkelson figured he’d might as well get the scoring started, leading off the second inning with the ol’ Oppo Taco to right for a 1-0 lead, his 20th home run of the season.

I hate to ruin the surprise, but that was it for the scoring. I encourage you to read on, though, as there were definitely some compelling goings-on in this contest.

Mize looked great right from the start, retiring the first eight hitters in order before walking Rocchio in the third… who was promptly thrown out stealing by Jake Rogers. Cleveland got its first hit with two outs in the fourth as José Ramírez laced a clean single to left over Javier Báez; Ramírez stole second but Mize got Carlos Santana to ground out harmlessly to Báez for the third out.

Meanwhile, Allen settled in quite nicely himself: lots of soft contact, a few strikeouts here and there, and Tiger hitters just couldn’t seem to figure things out. As it was, Detroit only had two hits all night, and they were both by Torkelson.

Mize got into a bit of trouble in the bottom of the sixth: Rocchio doubled to lead off, and with two outs Ramírez was intentionally walked (to the sound of boos from the Cleveland faithful). The gambit paid off as Santana flew out to centre to end the inning.

A relatively low pitch count allowed Mize to carry on into the seventh, and with one out Angel Martínez hit a fly ball to Vierling, who raced back to the wall in deep centre and made a nice catch. Bo Naylor followed with a ground-rule double to the right-field corner, and after a visit from Chris Fetter, Mize was left in the game to face Johnathan Rodríguez, the only right-handed hitter in the lineup. Mize induced a ground ball to shortstop to get out of the inning, and that would be it for him: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K. I can dig it.

The game remained a tense, close one for the second straight day. Brant Hurter relieved Mize in the eighth; he was great last year and early this year, but had one heck of a tough time getting people out in late June. His previous outing, though, was a 2⅔-inning, one-run, mostly-uneventful appearance in Washington, so which Hurter did we see? Well, the Guardians went 1-2-3, so… colour me… “cautiously optimistic.”

The Tigers were looking to add some insurance in the ninth against Tim Herrin; Matt Vierling led off with a walk, and with one out Jahmai Jones got hit in the foot to put two runners on. Greene walked to load the bases, bringing up Torkelson… and on the first pitch he grounded into an inning-ending double play.

Tommy Kahnle was brought in for the save in the one-run game, and he got Ramírez to fly out to left for the first out. Santana popped out to Rogers for the second out, and after the speedy Daniel Schneeman walked, Kahnle struck out pinch-hitter Kyle Manzardo swinging on a changeup (obviously) for the final out. Easy-peasy, right?

The Tigers go for the sweep on Sunday afternoon in Cleveland with Tarik Skubal scheduled to start. Personally, I like our chances in that one.

Final score: Tigers 1, Guardians 0

Well, that is delightful news

Stats and stuff

• Coming into tonight’s game, Javier Báez had cooled off a touch: from the start of the A’s series on June 24 through Friday night, he was 3-for-23 with one double and seven strikeouts.
• In the same stretch of time his fellow All-Star, Riley Greene, was 11-for-39 with a double, four home runs, and seven runs scored.
• Mind you, this included a three-game hitless streak before tonight for Greene: 11 plate appearances, six strikeouts… but two walks, so that’s something, I suppose.
• The Yankees have had two six-game losing streaks in the last month. That’s a shame.
• On this day in 1687, Isaac Newton published his seminal work, the Principia Mathematica, which is Latin for “Buckle up, girls and boys, I’m about to invent classical physics.” If you have access to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos series, there’s a stupendously great episode focused on Newton, and also outlined how Robert Hooke was kind of a jerk and Edmond Halley was probably a little too kind for his own good.