A day after the Tigers secured the series victory — but lost Justin Verlander to the Injured List with a hip problem — they went for the series sweep on a chilly, breezy Sunday night. A costly throwing error by a Tigers pitcher against the Cardinals (déja-vu, anyone?) undid an early lead and sent Detroit to a 5-3 loss.
Verlander was originally slated to start, on somewhat-national television (I think it was streaming on the BlorgNet app or something); the Tigers even had a special ticket promotion
going, including a t-shirt commemorating his true homecoming. Well, instead, they got everyone’s favourite sixth starter, Keider Montero, who’s in his third season… I hesitate to say “with the Tigers,” because he’s spent half of the past two seasons in Toledo. He made a dozen starts and eight relief appearances for the Tigers last year, and he was part of the WBC-winning Venezuela team earlier this spring.
Facing the Tigers tonight was Kyle Leahy, who spent the previous two years in the Cardinals’ bullpen, transitioning to a starting role this year. He had a decent 2025 in a relief role, with an ERA just above 3, a WHIP of 1.227, and while he doesn’t usually strike everybody out, he only gave up five home runs in 88 innings. He’d been a starter from the time he was drafted in 2018 through the 2022 season in the minors; he saw some action in AAA before the Cardinals made the decision to convert him to a reliever.
The game started off with both starting pitchers well in command, but the Tigers got a mini-threat going in the bottom of the second: Parker Meadows hit a sharp single and Spencer Torkelson walked, but Javier Báez hit a sharp grounder to third to end the inning. Meanwhile, Montero was only giving up soft contact, with a bloop single in the second being the sum total of the traffic on the basepaths for the Cardinals, and getting strikeouts on his sinker.
Kerry Carpenter opened the scoring with his second home run in two days; Colt Keith led off the bottom of the third with a single, went to second on a groundout, and with two outs Carpenter launched a mighty blast to straightaway centre for a 2-0 lead.
Montero, who was on a pitch count and so wouldn’t go too deep in this one, allowed a single and walked a guy to start the fifth; a groundout to second got the out at second. A single to left scored a run and ended Montero’s day, with Enmanuel De Jesus taking over. A comebacker bunt saw De Jesus fielding it and throwing it away, getting a run home to tie the game and putting runners on second and third. A single to right scored those two runs to put St. Louis up 4-2, and well, that was all pretty lousy.
But in the sixth Dillon Dingler — the master of the ABS system, apparently — walked to lead off, and he scooted over to third with a Parker Meadows single. Meadows then stole second to put a pair in scoring position, then Torkelson walked to load the bases. Báez hit a liner to left which was deep enough to score Dingler and narrow the lead to 4-3. Pinch-hitter Jahmai Jones hit a grounder to second which got Báez out at second, leaving runners on the corners with two outs. Kevin McGonigle drew a walk to re-load the bases, but Gleyber Torres grounded out to shortstop to end the inning. That felt like a squander to me, and was probably the thing that ultimately did the Tigers in tonight.
De Jesus righted the ship in the seventh with a 1-2-3 inning, and after giving up a leadoff single in the eighth, Connor Seabold took over. After a walk, a flyout and another walk, the Cardinals had the bases loaded with one out and Seabold was clearly having trouble finding the strike zone. A sacrifice fly pushed the Cardinals’ lead back to two runs, and after a strikeout the inning was mercifully over.
With one out in the eighth Torkelson walked again, but Báez flailed at an outside slider and Jones foul-tipped a high fastball into the catcher’s mitt. So much for that.
Riley O’Brien — tell me he shouldn’t have an auto-parts store named after him, I dare you — came on for the ninth and got three quick outs and everyone went home for hot cocoa.
Final score: Cardinals 5, Tigers 3
That got outta here in a hurry
Anything travelling that far oughtta have a darn stewardess on it.
(Catch the slightly-cleaned-up movie reference there?)
Notes and Observances
- Look, you can make all the age-related quips you want about Justin Verlander injuring his hip. Goodness knows I already have, amongst my BYB colleagues. Did this joke involve a reference to a Werther’s Original? I won’t tell.
- All joking aside, I’m older than Verlander, and I once had my back seize-up by getting out of my car in the parking lot at work. So for those of you younger than Verlander — a spry 43, merely a spring chicken — age is going to come for you, too, pal.
- Did you see that Jo Adell of the Angels, playing right field, went over the fence to rob the Mariners of three home runs? And that the game ended up a 1-0 Angels victory? Holy mackerel! Do yourself a favour and go find that video clip. Hold on, here it is, and you are very, very welcome.
- You really should be following the Artemis II mission around the Moon, and not just because one of the astronauts is from small-town southwestern Ontario like me.
- On this day in 1974, Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, was published for the first time. I think he’s done pretty well for himself in the ensuing years.
