On Tuesday night the Tigers tried to clinch at least a series victory against the best team in the American League, the New York Yankees. (The AL this year, as has been noted, is far behind the National League; to wit, the Yankees wouldn’t be leading any division in the NL.) They weren’t successful in that endeavour, as the Yankees came back with a trio of late runs to edge the Tigers 4-3.
Casey Mize made his eleventh start of the year, his second since coming back from straining his groin at the end
of May. His previous outing didn’t quite go five innings, and was also shortened by a ton of long at-bats by the Astros. He’s had an excellent year so far: coming into tonight (in 52 1/3 innings) he’d struck out 52, only given up three home runs, and had a WHIP just over 1.
Facing the Tigers tonight was lefty Carlos Rodón, who had a loose-body-removal surgery in the offseason, a little like Tarik Skubal’s but a bit more traditional, needing more healing time. His control has been eluding him at times, with 20 walks in 36 1/3 innings, but some of that is probably rust from his altered offseason regimen. Last year he was sensational, going 18-9 with an ERA a hair over 3.
Mize got into trouble in the top of the first: a one-out double by Jasson Domínguez was followed by a steal of third; Dillon “Marshall” Dingler’s throw got away from Kevin McGonigle, and if Domínguez was paying attention to his third-base coach he would’ve been able to crab-walk home easily. But instead he stayed on third and counted dandelions in the grass; Cody Bellinger then walked to put runners on the corners. Paul Goldschmidt hit a short fly ball to Ben Malgeri in right field, making his major-league debut, and his throw home kept Domínguez at third. Jazz Chisolm Jr. grounded out harmlessly to first and the threat was extinguished.
Mize squelched another minor threat in the third, as Anthony Volpe singled to lead off and stole second base. But then Mize got his splitter workin’ and managed to get a flyout and a pair of strikeouts, stranding Volpe at second base.
With one out in the bottom of the third, Zach McKinstry singled to centre, and the aforementioned Malgeri, in his first major-league at-bat, on the first pitch, sliced a single to right to push McKinstry up to third.
A wild pitch by Rodón allowed McKinstry to score, and Malgeri scored on a two-out Dingler single to make it a 2-0 game.
The Yankees got runners on the corners with one out again in the fourth, but this time they scored: a dribbler to third was too slow for McGonigle to get the speedy runner at home, so he took the sure out at first and the gap was narrowed to 2-1. A slow dribbler was fielded by Mize; he scooped it up and tagged the batter-runner himself for the third out.
Riley Greene led off the bottom of the fourth with a walk and took second on a groundout. He was at second with two outs when Hao-Yu Lee singled to left; Greene tried to score but was thrown out at home. Whoops.
In the sixth Paul Goldschmidt hit a dribbler, a perfect swinging bunt, that he beat out for an infield hit that Mize almost made a play on. That would be a big deal, as Chisolm, the next batter, hit a home run to right to put New York up 3-2. After a strikeout, José Caballero (no relation to Guy Caballero, as far as I know) singled to left and that was the end of Mize’s night. Tyler Holton took over and, on the first pitch, Austin Wells doubled to left to score Caballero to make it 4-2.
Dingler led off the bottom of the sixth with a double to centre, and Matt Vierling followed with a double of his own to close the cap to 4-3.
After Greene struck out, Rodón departed in favour of Fernando Cruz; Spencer Torkelson struck out for the second out, and Kerry Carpenter pinch-hit for Jahmai Jones (yes, you read that right) and walked. Colt Keith followed, and Cruz’s control continued to elude him as he went 3-0 on Keith, but he eventually coaxed a grounder to first out of him for the final out.
Holton got the first two outs of the top of the seventh, walked Bellinger, and then gave way to Kyle Finnegan, who struck out Goldschmidt on a slider for the third out.
Malgeri blasted another single into right for the second hit of his career with one out in the seventh, but McGonigle followed with a sinking liner to right that (a.) Domínguez took a really weird route on, and (b.) Malgeri assumed it’d get by him, but (c.) Domínguez caught it and (d.) doubled-off Malgeri at first. Oh well.
After Finnegan struck out the side in the top of the eighth, Dingler led off the bottom of the inning with a single, his third hit of the night. Vierling struck out, Greene hit a 109-mph straight at the centerfielder, and after a pitching change to closer David Bednar, Torkelson popped up to first for the third out.
Enmanuel De Jesus took over for Finnegan to start the ninth and he got a strikeout, a comebacker, and a flyout. That was his sixth straight scoreless appearance, which is nice.
What wasn’t quite so nice was the 1-2-3 ninth inning turned in by Bednar, snuffing out any hope for a comeback. Ah well, winning streaks have to end sometime, I suppose.
Final score: Yankees 4, Tigers 3
Notes and Commemorations
- After his three-homer game, Colt Keith has gone 2-for-16.
- I played my daughter the Minor Threat song linked above. Her review? “No, dada. No.”
- On this day in 1713, French-speaking Acadians in eastern Canada were given one year to either pledge allegiance to the British crown or get out of the colony of Nova Scotia. The heat died off for a bit after that, but in the wake of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, a good number of them high-tailed it for Louisiana (which was a Spanish colony at that time, but still had, and has, a strong French-influenced culture). The word “Cajun” is an adaptation of “Acadian,” which phonetically in French sounds like “a-cad-djien“.
