Tigers 5, Blue Jays 4: A real nailbiter of a victory

There were lots of solo home runs and a hold-on-to-your-butts ending. But baseball is still fun, everybody.

Fresh off their exciting sweep of Boston earlier this week, the Detroit Tigers made the trip up the 401 to take on the Toronto Blue Jays . On a gorgeous Friday night the dome was open, the dingers were flying, and the Tigers took the first of a three-game weekend series by a 5-4 score.

Jack Flaherty made the start for the Tigers, looking to atone for a rough outing against the Rangers last Saturday. Honestly, he’s been a little shaky recently, with five of his previous six starts not going terribly well: lots of traffic on the basepaths, a home run or two (or four, in the Rangers game), and overall quite a bit of hard contact, particularly late in his outings. A little deeper dive into the stats shows Flaherty’s inducing the lowest ground ball rate of his career, too.

Facing Flaherty was Bowden Francis, who’s in his third season in Toronto in which he’s seen significant action. Last year he was mostly in the bullpen before making nine excellent starts to end his campaign; this year has been much more of a struggle. Lots of hits and hard contact, not a lot of strikeouts, and a whole bunch of home runs (including five against Boston at the end of April).

The Tigers took a 1-0 lead when Riley Greene jumped on a first-pitch curveball to lead off the top of the second inning, and there’s Francis’ home-run proclivity, right there.

With one out in the bottom of the second, Addison Barger walked after a ten-pitch battle with Flaherty, then Nathan Lukes lifted a fly ball to the right-centre gap. Check this out.

Is there anything Javier Báez can’t do these days? What a sensational play and the throw to double off Barger was right on the money.

In the top of the fourth, Zach McKinstry joined the solo-home-run party with a shot to right field for a 2-0 lead.

McKinstry hit his home run just over the right-field fence in the corner. That’s a really nice general-admission area of the stadium which is a lot of fun, and if you’re there you feel like you’re hovering right over the field. Just to your right would be the visitors’ bullpen, and holy moly, it’s just a chain-link fence separating you from the catcher. (Security is pretty heavy there to make sure people don’t, y’know, do something they’d later regret.)

The lead was extended in the fifth inning: Kerry Carpenter and Colt Keith both singled, and a Riley Greene double brought out Joey Cora’s windmill and both runners scored to make it a 4-0 game. After a pair of two-out walks Francis was dispatched to the showers in favour of the colourfully-named Mason Fluharty, who entered the contest with the bases loaded. Sadly, Trey Sweeney struck out swinging and the score stayed static.

Flaherty looked good, though: four-seamers and sliders aplenty, along with a few knuckle-curves and a very occasional changeup just to keep things interesting. The fourseam velocity was back up to his usual standards and he was collecting some whiffs with it rather than just the breaking stuff. He rebounded very, very well from his previous clunker of a start, which is great to see.

It couldn’t all be sunshine and roses, though: on an 0-2 pitch with two outs in the sixth, Daulton Varsho flicked a 96 mph outside fastball the other way into the home bullpen to narrow the Tigers’ lead to 4-2. Flaherty’s final line was pretty respectable, though: 5 ⅔ innings, 5 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk, 6 whiffs. Brenan Hanifee took over and struck out George Springer on the tenth pitch of the at-bat.

Hanifee started to stumble in the next inning, though: after a double, Myles Straw skooched a single down the first base line to make it a 4-3 game. He was missing his spots pretty badly, but fortunately a pair of soft grounders got him and the Detroiters out of further trouble.

Báez thought it’d been a few too many innings since he’d made any waves in this game, so he decided to club an up-and-in fastball way over the fence with two outs in the eighth, with authority, for a 5-3 Tigers lead. That’s a tough pitch to hit for a single, let alone a home run.

Bo Bichette, though, rudely greeted Tommy Kahnle in the bottom of the inning with a solo home run of his own to again narrow the lead to a single run.

Beau Brieske was brought on to get the final three outs: he got Alejandro Kirk to line out sharply to centre and Barger hit a soft comebacker. But Báez couldn’t handle a soft fly ball to shallow centre, which put the speedy Straw on first base as the tying run. Michael Stefanic then singled to left, as various parts of many Tiger fans’ bodies clenched a little harder. However, pinch-hitter Ernie Clement hit another comebacker to Brieske, who calmly tossed the ball to Spencer Torkelson, as those body parts relaxed and the victory was in the books.

Game #2 of the series starts at 3:07 pm EDT on Saturday afternoon. Look for me on the tee vee, everyone!

RIP to a Legendary Score Bug

Fare thee well, P00P.

Notes and Observations

• Talking about Javier Báez this year is pretty fun, so I’ll do it too. In ten May games before tonight he’s hitting .333 with power (1.030 OPS), with four home runs and 16 RBI.
• Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABip), which is roughly .290 for the league as a whole, can show if you’ve just been lucky; if your BABip is high, then you’ll likely regress a bit. I’m pleased to inform you that while Báez’s BABip has been high this year, it’s been lower in those May games (.345) than it was in March and April (.397). It’s not a huge sample size, but I thought that was pretty neat. Of course dingers don’t count as balls in play, so there’s part of your answer.
• Báez is also the brother-in-law of Blue Jays pitcher José Berríos as their wives are sisters.
• As my colleague Zane pointed out this evening, at one point in the game the pitching matchup was Flaherty vs. Fluharty.
• Happy birthday to Władziu Valentino Liberace, better known just by his last name, who was born on this day in 1919. A master showman, he was a piano player like no other. If you’re old enough, you remember how this guy was just all over the place. Here’s a challenge: try explaining Liberace’s popularity to someone under thirty. Also, I wanted a way to work in this bonkers video clip from the ‘60s.