Detroit — Without side-stepping or excusing the reality of what’s gone on at Comerica Park the last few days, Detroit Tigers manager AJ Hinch offered some valuable perspective.
“The result often drives the emotions around it,” he said after the Seattle Mariners pounded the Tigers for the second straight day, 15-7, before a home crowd of 36,438 on Saturday. “If I told you we were 3-3 this week and we’re getting on to the next week, everyone would take a deep breath.
“But the way it happened has created a little bit of stress and an unfortunate series loss going into tomorrow.”
BOX SCORE: Mariners 15, Tigers 7
The Tigers, after winning five straight, have lost three in a row for the third time this season. That creates some stress. But the bludgeoning the pitching staff has endured in this stretch intensifies it. Going back to the finale against the Rays on Wednesday, the pitching has yielded 34 runs, 46 hits and seven home runs.
The Mariners scored 12 runs on Friday, seven in the ninth inning. They followed up with 15 Saturday, four in the ninth.
“It was crazy today,” Tigers catcher Jake Rogers said. “It felt like they were on everything and when they weren’t barreling it up, they were finding holes. It was weird today. Tough one.”
It’s the first time the Tigers allowed 12 or more runs in back-to-back games since Sept. 9-10, 2020. The 11 combined runs allowed in the ninth inning is the most in franchise history.
“We’re in a tough situation right now,” Rogers said. “We’re not playing like we have but we’ve got to keep going. We’re in a little bit of a lull right now. It happens in baseball. We’ve got one more game before the break then I hope we come back after energized.”
The starch came out of the Tigers early in this one.
A 95-minute rain delay, a missed opportunity in the first inning, a rare clunker by Casey Mize and the continued sizzle of the Mariners’ bats all conspired.
“I’m going to look at this one through two lenses,” said Mize, who gave up six runs including a three-run homer to Luke Raley in a five-run third. “The first being, we lost today’s game and that mainly has to do with me. I didn’t put us in position to win and I am frustrated by that more than anything.”
The three-inning outing was Mize’s shortest this season and the six runs were the most he’s allowed since he gave up six in 1.2 innings at Kansas City on May 21, 2024.
“But then I’m going to realize that my first half is over and I feel like my body of work has been good,” Mize said. “I’m pleased to be a quality contributor to the team with the best record in baseball and I’m going to my first All-Star Game. Both of those things are true.
“I’m going to digest the fact that we lost today’s game and that I’m a big part of that. But also, I feel like I’m a pretty big part of why we have the best record in baseball, as well.”
The Tigers had a chance to write a completely different story early in this game. Seattle starter George Kirby, who missed the first seven weeks of the season with a shoulder injury, was uncharacteristically wild in the first inning.
One of the best strike-throwers in the game, he walked Colt Keith to open the bottom of the first and Gleyber Torres followed with a double, extending his on-base streak to an MLB-best 24 games.
Keith scored on a short sacrifice fly to left field by Riley Greene. Keith was halfway down the line at third, sprinted back to the bag, tagged and bolted home. Left fielder Randy Arozarena’s throw beat Keith to the plate but it sailed over the catcher’s head.
Kirby then hit Spencer Torkelson and walked Zach McKinstry to load the bases. He was at 31 pitches. He was listing badly.
And after a mound visit, he threw Matt Vierling a first-pitch, center-cut, 95-mph sinker. Vierling smoked it, 102 mph off the bat, but he hit it on the ground and right at shortstop J.P. Crawford — inning over.
“In those situations, he’s a good command pitcher,” Vierling said. “But he led off the inning with a walk and that’s really unusual for him. And then the boys kept putting it on and putting it on and then they have the mound visit with two outs.
“I know he’s trying to get back in the zone and he’s got the ability to do that. I was fully expecting that pitch and I just came over the top of it a little bit but I hit it hard. I thought he was coming in there and he did.”
Hinch liked Vierling’s aggression.
“If he hits it in the gap, are we OK that he swung first pitch?” he said. “We can’t chase the strategy with just the results. If that’s what he was looking for and he was ready to hit and he smoked the ball in the gap and we have a wider lead, nobody is complaining about him swinging.”
The Tigers kept fighting back but the Mariners never stopped hitting and scoring.
Greene brought the Tigers briefly back within shouting distance in the fifth inning when he launched a two-out, 2-2 splitter into the seats in left field to make it 7-4.
It was an impressive at-bat. Kirby got ahead of him 1-2 and located the 2-2 pitch at the outer edge of the strike zone, difficult for Greene to pull or loft. But he was able stay back on it and drive it high and hard to the opposite field.
It was his 23rd home run and gave him 77 RBIs — setting a single-season career high. At the All-Star break, mind you.
McKinstry hit his eighth homer, a two-run shot in the eighth and the Tigers stranded the bases loaded with two outs, with both Torres (three hits) and Wenceel Perez having opportunities to tie the score with one swing.
“We tried to scratch our way back,” Hinch said. “Having the tying run at the plate for a couple of at-bats was awesome. But they scored in seven of the nine innings.”
Julio Rodriguez sent a hanging slider from reliever Keider Montero 427 feet into the seats in left field in the sixth inning. Arozarena singled and scored in the seventh and then blasted a 431-foot, two-run home run off reliever Chase Lee in the eighth.
Tommy Kahnle got the ball for the Tigers in the top of the ninth and he didn’t record an out, allowing four runs, three on a bases-clearing double by J.P. Crawford.
“Just pick up the pieces and get to tomorrow,” Hinch said. “Clearly these are some ugly losses and uncharacteristic of our pitching to put us in such deep holes. We’ll come back tomorrow and try to be better.”
@cmccosky