Tigers support Manning with four HRs but lose
LAKELAND, Fla. – The Detroit Tigers lost to the New York Mets, 10-5, on Thursday at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium.
The Tigers are 16-9-3 in Grapefruit League play.
What happened
Right-hander Matt Manning should have been out of the fourth inning.
With two outs, shortstop Javier Báez — charged with a throwing error — made a sliding stop up the middle to keep a ground ball from sneaking into the outfield, but he threw the ball in the dirt and first baseman Spencer Torkelson failed to scoop it cleanly. The next batter, Brett Baty, blasted a two-strike curveball from Manning for a two-run home run.
Manning allowed three runs (one earned run) on three hits and three walks with four strikeouts across four-plus innings, throwing 48 of 77 pitches for strikes. The 26-year-old, competing for a spot in the Tigers’ starting rotation, generated 11 whiffs on 35 swings with two fastballs, six sliders and three curveballs.
“He started to spray the ball a little bit more as the outing went on,” manager A.J. Hinch said, “and then he had a couple of pitches that they made him pay for. A little mixture of things. Some good, obviously, and then a couple misfires, but all in all, it’s part of the spring. At the end of spring it feels like it’s magnified, but Matty did some good things and also had some pitches he probably wants back.”
The defensive miscue from Báez and Torkelson, which led to Baty’s two-run homer, didn’t immediately doom the Tigers on the scoreboard. That’s because the Tigers crushed the Mets with four home runs of their own.
“We put some good swings on them,” Hinch said.
Colt Keith, a 22-year-old top prospect, launched his first home run of spring training in the second inning. He turned on a downand-in cutter from right-hander Dominic Hamel — ranked as the Mets’ No. 14 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline — with a 110.1 mph exit velocity.
The ball bounced off the light tower in right field.
Keith put the Tigers ahead, 2-0.
Starting off
Manning pitched into the fifth inning, but he walked the only two batters he faced in the fifth. Right-handed reliever Beau Brieske replaced him and bailed him out by retiring three batters in a row — Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso, Mark Vientos — to escape the two-on, noout jam.
Still, Manning looked sharp.
He gave up two home runs, but the second one took place after an unfortunate two-out throwing error. The first homer, however, occurred on an elevated fastball to Harrison Bader with two outs in the third inning.
Bader took Manning deep to left-center field.
Manning struck out four batters: Jeff McNeil (called strike, 95.4 mph fastball), Ji Man Choi (swinging strike, 79.5 mph curveball), Francisco Alvarez (swinging strike, 87 mph slider) and Choi (swinging strike, 95.6 mph fastball).
He threw 37 four-seam fastballs, 27 sliders, seven curveballs and six changeups. He only threw seven curveballs, but the 79 mph breaking ball was responsible for three of his 11 whiffs and two of his 13 called strikes.
Manning averaged 94.3 mph with his fastball.
At the plate
Parker Meadows, the Tigers’ leadoff hitter, kickstarted the four home runs with a solo homer in the first inning. He smacked a thirdpitch changeup from Hamel to right-center field with a 104.3 mph exit velocity.
It was Meadows’ third homer this spring. In the top of the third inning, Meadows covered 74 feet in center field — traveling 26.6 feet per second — to catch a sharp line drive. The ball in play had a .540 expected batting average, but it seemed like an easy out with Meadows in center field.
“That was an amazing play based on where he started and where he can go,” Hinch said. “We won’t play out of position for that, and we weren’t out of position, but he can make up for the randomness of baseball with a great jump and a great finish to the play, and he did it on his feet. I joked with Riley (Greene) that he can stay on the corners.”
The Tigers tacked on two more home runs in the bottom of the third inning.
Greene decided to swing at a 3-0 pitch, a middle-down fastball, and launched his first home run of spring training the opposite way to left-center field. Kerry Carpenter joined the party with an opposite-field homer to left field off Hamel’s middle-middle fastball, his second homer this spring.
Both Greene and Carpenter received some help from the wind blowing to left field.
The Tigers scored their fifth run on a wild pitch in the eighth inning.
On the mound
After Brieske bailed out Manning, he took care of his own business in the sixth against Starling Marte, Alvarez and Baty.
Brieske struck out Marte swinging with a down-and-away 85.9 mph changeup in a righton-right matchup. He then struck out Alvarez, another right-handed hitter, swinging with an elevated 97.3 mph fastball. Baty, a left-handed hitter, grounded out on a changeup at the bottom of the strike zone.
Brieske, who threw 15 of 20 pitches for strikes, is competing for one of the final spots in the bullpen.
The Tigers also used right-hander Alex Lange and right-hander Drew Anderson out of the bullpen. Lange completed a scoreless seventh inning with two strikeouts, but Anderson loaded the bases before Alvarez’s two-run single in the eighth inning. The two-run single put the Mets ahead, 5-4.
Anderson gave up five runs on three hits and one walk, only getting one out.
The Mets scored seven runs in the eighth inning.
Three stars
1. Brieske, 2. Keith, 3. Manning.