The Detroit Tigers, like many other teams in baseball this season, looked helpless against a rotation filled with All-Star pitchers.
The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Tigers, 6-1, on Sunday, Aug. 30, on a rainy afternoon that delayed the start an hour at Comerica Park.
With the loss, the Tigers fell to 63-73 before a seven-game road trip against American League Central opponents in the Minnesota Twins (Aug. 31-Sept. 2) and the Cleveland Guardians (Sept. 4-6).
The Tigers have lost five straight series after climbing into the final wild-card spot in the American League on Aug. 13, going 3-12 since. They are now 5½ games out with six teams to jump. Cleveland (69-68) has the final berth.
A two-run home run from left fielder Teoscar Hernández in the top
of the sixth inning gave the Dodgers a 3-1 lead, right after Tigers starter Framber Valdez had finished a mound visit with pitching coach Chris Fetter. The home run was Hernández’s 12th of the season and the first home run a Tigers pitcher allowed in this series.
Valdez, who finished with three runs allowed and five strikeouts over six innings pitched, was effective through five innings before the Dodgers broke the tie.
The Dodgers added three more runs in the eighth inning with Tigers reliever Tanner Rainey on the mound, making his sixth appearance this season. Two runs came off wild pitches, scoring Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.
Tigers batters didn't find success against Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow, who gave up only two hits and one run over seven innings.
An RBI single from Kevin McGonigle in the fourth inning scored their only run.
It was the third straight low-scoring game for the Tigers, who put up one run in Friday's 2-1 loss started by former ace Tarik Skubal and two runs in Saturday's 2-1 walkoff win started by two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell.
Though Glasnow doesn't have the same individual hardware as his teammates, he brought similar pedigree to the mound with arguably the best start of any pitcher this series.
Framber Valdez with quality start
Valdez needed only six pitches in the first inning to get through designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, second baseman Tommy Edman and Betts. All three were retired via infield groundouts.
In the second, Valdez worked around a Freeman walk and Miguel Rojas double by striking out Hernández, Kyle Tucker and Enrique Hernández. It was a strong response from Valdez, who on Aug. 24 finished his only strikeout-less start of the season in a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Consecutive one-out singles from Freeman and Teoscar Hernández put runners on the corners, and Rojas' sacrifice fly gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.
Two innings later, it was Freeman and Hernández again, with Freeman scorching a one-out double down the right field line and Hernández breaking through with a 434-foot home run to left-center field.
Teoscar Hernández DEMOLISHES this baseball 😳
— MLB (@MLB) August 30, 2026
His 434-foot shot puts the @Dodgers ahead! pic.twitter.com/54Fo1wKbrz
Rainey entered in the eighth with the Tigers down 3-1, and after getting Edman to fly out to center, allowed a one-out double to Betts and a walk to Freeman. Rainey faced six batters and only got one out, with Kyle Finnegan replacing him to get the final two outs of the inning, both on strikeouts.
Tigers offense shut down again
Tigers hitters may have lucked out with Ohtani ruled out of a potential start on Sunday, but that only meant facing the 6-foot-8 veteran Glasnow from the very first pitch. Glasnow didn’t allow a baserunner through his first three innings as he pounded hitters with fastballs, throwing only seven breaking balls among his first 34 pitches.
The Tigers broke through in the fourth after Torres led off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Two batters later, McGonigle drove him in on a one-out single to tie the game, though McGonigle was later tagged out trying to steal second for the second out of the inning.
Kev ties it up ‼️ pic.twitter.com/m3LHuYVWj8
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) August 30, 2026
After clean innings in both the fifth and six, McGonigle and catcher Dillon Dingler both made hard contact on line drive outs in the seventh, as Glasnow recorded his sixth 1-2-3 inning of the day. He finished the seventh inning with 85 pitches and might have come out for the eighth had the Dodgers not had such a lengthy turn in the top of the three-run inning.
Instead, Dodgers relievers Kyle Hurt and Seth Halvorsen pitched the final two innings to seal the win for the Dodgers (82-55).
Tigers schedule: Next up is the Twins
The Tigers start a seven-game road series with the Minnesota Twins on Monday, Aug. 31, with Tigers righty Jackson Jobe (1-1, 3.93 ERA) facing off against Twins righty Taj Bradley (9-6, 3.97 ERA). All three games in Minnesota start at 7:40 p.m. ET.
The Tigers then get a day off Thursday before a visit to the Guardians for four games starting Friday with a doubleheader in Cleveland.
Need to catch up on the news during your lunch break? Sign up for our Sports Briefing newsletter to get daily summaries of Detroit sports!
You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers lifeless again in loss to Dodgers to drop 5th straight series
