TORONTO – It felt like old times.
Max Scherzer was on the mound, Justin Verlander watched from the Detroit Tigers dugout and Alex Avila was in the house.
Only everything has changed.
Scherzer earned a 5-1 victory for the Toronto Blue Jays against the Tigers at Rogers Centre on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Verlander is still on injured reserve (although he’s penciled in to pitch next week
) and Avila, the former Tigers catcher, is working on TV.Scherzer allowed only one run in five innings, scattering three hits.
The other game inside this one? Scherzer started the game with 3,540 career strikeouts and needed 14 to match Verlander (3,554) for eighth-most all time. He finished with three.
Tigers playoff chase in MLB standings
The Toronto win snapped a six-game winning streak for the Tigers (72-80),
who head to Chicago to play a four-game series against the White Sox (77-75). The Tigers are five games behind the White Sox for the final wild-card spot in the American League with 10 games remaining and four teams to jump (Texas, Toronto, Baltimore).
The Tigers are 5½ games behind the Cleveland Guardians (78-75) for first place in the AL Central.
So, with less than two weeks left, do the Tigers have a chance? They have not been mathematically eliminated.
But there is no room for error. And on this day, the Tigers had plenty of them against the Blue Jays. Three to be exact. Two by shortstop John Peck and one by third baseman Kevin McGonigle.
Mad Max Scherzer beats Tigers
Scherzer was making his 490th career start.
Colt Keith got the Tigers’ first hit, blooping a ball that seemed to hang in the air forever and found a hole between the Blue Jays infielders and outfielders – a ball that should have been caught. But Keith hustled to second, getting a double.
Then, Riley Greene rifled a ball up the middle – Scherzer ducked out of the way – and Keith was able to score from second, giving the Tigers an early 1-0 lead.
But after that? Not a whole lot of offense for the Tigers.
They did put two guys on in the ninth, but the Blue Jays brought in Louis Varland, who struck out Brett Callahan. Peck lined out to second. And McGonigle struck out after an ABS challenge by the Toronto catcher showed a fraction of the baseball nipping the top right corner of the strike zone, turning a walk that would have loaded the bases into a game-ender.
Tigers defense falters against Blue Jays
Keider Montero returned from paternity leave and had his first Tigers start since the arrival of his daughter Victoria (both mom and baby are doing great).
Montero got into some trouble in the first inning when the Blue Jays put together a couple of hits. But Montero got out of it by striking out George Springer and Kazuma Okamoto.
Montero faced some more trouble in the second inning when the Blue Jays put runners on first and third. But he struck out Brett Bateman to end the threat.
Once again, he faced a heap of trouble in the fourth inning after the Royals put runners on second and third with nobody out. Ernie Clement tied up the game, 1-1, when he lifted a sacrifice fly to center. Max Clark threw home but wasn’t close. And Myles Straw gave the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead with a single to left.
After all of that traffic on the bases, Montero’s pitch count climbed fast and he was pulled after four innings. He gave up six hits, two runs and had a pair of walks.
One interesting stat: Montero, who just turned 26, made his 25th start of the year, the sixth Tiger pitcher to reach 25 starts in their age-25 season (or younger) since 2010, joining Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, Michael Fulmer, Rick Porcello and Scherzer.
Tyler Holton pitched the fifth inning and the Tigers started to get sloppy. After Bateman hit a single, Nathan Lukes bunted the ball in front of the plate. Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler pounced on it and tried to throw out the lead runner at second. But he airmailed it and both runners were safe. After a ground out, George Springer came up with runners on first and third with one out. He singled to right to make it 3-1.
Lefty Drew Sommers pitched the sixth inning, and he was effective, but the Tigers' defense fell apart when they had three straight errors: two by normally sure-handed John Peck and one by Kevin McGonigle.
Tigers schedule up next: White Sox
The Tigers will head to Chicago for a four-game series at the White Sox.
The Tigers rotation will include Framber Valdez (Thursday at 7:40 p.m.), Andrew Sears (Friday at 7:40 p.m.), Jackson Jobe (Saturday at 7:10 p.m.) and Troy Melton (Sunday at 2:10 p.m.).
Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on X @seideljeff
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers playoff hopes take perhaps final punch in loss to Blue Jays
