Tigers 2, Rangers 1: It was a fine day to start a winning streak

A late run on a clutch hit from an unlikely source was just enough for the victory.

The Detroit Tigers began their Sunday night nationally-televised game, the finale of a three-game weekend series in Texas, desperate to end their six-game losing streak. That they did, with a nail-biting 2-1 win that featured some mighty fine clutch pitching and hitting.

There aren’t too many pitchers you can throw out there to stop a losing streak who are more suited for the task than Tarik Skubal. Fresh off his All-Star start — remember, he got blooped-and-BABip’d to death out there — he’s been a little up-and-down lately. He’ll either give you six or seven shutout innings, or he’ll cough up four runs. Also uncharacteristically, in four of his five previous starts, he walked at least one batter. Weird.

Nathan Eovaldi was supposed to pitch for Texas, but he was scratched due to back issues in favour of lefty Jacob Latz, who is in his second full season with the Rangers. He’s been solid, occasionally making starts here-and-there but mostly being used lately as a multi-inning reliever. Back on June 24 in Baltimore he made a spot start and took a no-hitter into the seventh, which was probably one of the most unexpected things to happen in Baltimore in quite some time.

Corey Seager, who was a nice 6-for-9 against Skubal coming into tonight’s game, hit a one-out double in the first down the left-field line to raise that to 7-for-10. But then he got Marcus Semien and Adolis García to strike out and that was that.

The Tigers got on the board with some line drive singles in the second: Wenceel Pérez led off, Dillon Dingler followed, and Zach McKinstry cashed Pérez in for a 1-0 lead. Dingler and McKinstry, with that signature aggressive baserunning, each advanced an extra base when the throw from the outfield came home, which I love.

Meanwhile, Skubal looked as if he was genuinely angry at the Rangers for daring to hit anything he was throwing.

Latz was no slouch himself: five one-run innings in a spot start, I’d be pretty happy with that. He was relieved by Luke Jackson, which reminds me, Cool Hand Luke is one heck of a good movie.

With one out in the seventh McKinstry walked, then promptly stole second. Trey Sweeney, who came in for Báez — no word on why right now — struck out, and pinch-hitter Colt Keith, batting for Jahmai Jones, was brought in. The Rangers countered by bringing in sidearming lefty Hoby Milner, and Keith essentially had no hope to get anything going; he kept the bat on his shoulder as he struck out.

García doubled with one out in the seventh, and Kyle Higashioka singled to centre; García hung up for a split-second and didn’t score on the hit. Skubal battled Jonah Heim and finally got him to strike out swinging on the eighth pitch; that would end Skubal’s day. Tyler Holton was brought in, Higashioka stole second, and a wild pitch scored García from third to tie the game.

The eighth inning started with a pair of softly-hit infield singles off Chris Martin — no, not that one — but Spencer Torkelson struck out on a high fastball for the first out, and Pérez popped out for the second out, leaving things up to Matt Vierling, who’s been having a tough go of it lately. But on a full count pitch on which the runners were moving, Vierling laced a single to centre to score Gleyber Torres and put the Tigers up 2-1.

Martin apparently injured himself while delivering the final pitch to Vierling, so he came out of the game and was replaced by Caleb Boushley, who struck out Dingler to end the inning.

Holton carried on to the bottom of the eighth and struck out the first two batters; Will Vest was then brought in and dispatched Wyatt Langford with three fastballs for the third out.

Boushley also carried on to the next inning, and with two outs in the top of the ninth, Keith worked a full-count walk but Torres popped out softly to first base and it was on to the bottom of the ninth.

Vest continued on and got Seager to ground out to shortstop on the first pitch. On the second pitch he got Semien to fly out to right. García then struck out swinging for the third out.

The losing streak was officially over. And the people rejoiced.

Final score: Tigers 2, Rangers 1

Notes and Observations

• Let’s talk about Colt Keith. He started off cold, with a .580 OPS at the end of April. Now, say what you will about the chilliness of the Tigers’ bats lately, but in July before tonight’s game his OPS was a robust .966 (in 49 plate appearances).
• Defensively, he’s been all over the infield: 21 starts at second base, 17 at first base and 9 at third base… and the stats suggest that while he’s not great at any of those spots, he won’t embarrass himself either. He has started at DH 25 times, though, as the Tigers don’t seem to have a designated designated hitter. Gone are the days of Edgar Martinez or David Ortiz being your everyday DH, I suppose.
• For the record, I still wished that pitchers hit. There’s a beautiful symmetry with nine in the field, nine at the plate that the DH ruins… but I realize I’m very much in the minority on this one.
• On this day in 1969, the crew of the Apollo 11 lander (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) landed on the moon. If you think they faked it all, holy moly, you are out to lunch; besides, as Armstrong put it, “It would’ve been harder to fake it than to do it.”