Tigers score early, blast Marlins late on 2nd Tork bomb of 2024
The Miami Marlins are the worst team in baseball.
The Detroit Tigers nearly lost to them, but Spencer Torkelson saved his team by demolishing a hanging slider for two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning, providing a 6-5 win over the Marlins in Monday’s opener of a three-game series at Comerica Park.
“It felt really good to help the team out,” Torkelson said.
Torkelson, who extended his hitting streak to eight games, hit the ball 446 feet to left-center field for his second home run of the season. The longest homer of his career gave him the longest hitting streak of his career.
The Tigers (21-20), meanwhile, avoided falling below .500 for the first time this season.
Right-handed reliever Alex Faedo gave up a two-run home run to Otto Lopez in the top of the eighth, but the Tigers responded with three runs in the bottom of the eighth, capped by Torkelson’s second homer in as many days (after none in the Tigers’ first 39 games).
“Just to get that feeling, you kind just got to feel it once,” Torkelson said. “Like a lot of things in life, you feel it, and then it’s repeatable and repeatable and repeatable. It’s just about getting the first one.”
But first, the Tigers cut their deficit to 5-4 with Wenceel Pérez’s double to right field and Andy Ibáñez’s RBI single.
The Tigers were down to two outs and two strikes in the eighth when Torkelson unleashed on a meatball — a middle-middle slider from right-handed reliever Anthony Maldonado — for a two-run homer, putting the Tigers ahead, 6-5.
“This was a big one,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “I’m really happy for him. You could see the emotion when he hit it. It’s been a long stretch for him, and to come up big in a big moment with a big swing, literally a game changer. Very rewarding for a lot of work for him and the people around him.”
Right-handed reliever Jason Foley then recorded his 10th save when he sent down the Marlins in order in the bottom of the ninth inning, striking out the first two batters.
Matt Manning returns
Right-hander Matt Manning dealt with at least one runner on base in every inning in his return from Triple-A Toledo, replacing Kenta Maeda in the rotation. He allowed three runs on nine hits and one walk with five strikeouts in 52⁄3 innings, throwing 81 pitches.
“It was fun,” Manning said. “I had a good time. I like being here. You can’t take a day in the big leagues for granted. I’m glad we won the game, and I just tried to do my part.”
Manning worked around mini-threats in the first, second, third and fourth innings,
but putting runners on base caught up to him in the fifth inning. The Marlins tied the game, 3-3, with three runs in the frame, which began with a leadoff single from Vidal Bruján.
After two outs, the Marlins racked up three hits in a row for three runs: Bryan De La Cruz (RBI single), Josh Bell (RBI double) and Jesús Sánchez (RBI single).
Bruján hit a fastball, De La Cruz hit a sweeper, and then both Bell and Sánchez hammered curveballs. The Marlins produced hard contact throughout Manning’s five-plus innings, but primarily in the three-run fifth inning.
Manning returned for the sixth inning. He recorded two outs in a row before Bruján’s double chased him from his fourth start of the season (and just his first start as a member of the 26-man roster). Manning, who has a 4.37 ERA, made his previous three starts as the 27th player for doubleheaders.
Faedo picked up Manning by striking out Christian Bethancourt on three pitches — 82.5 mph slider, 83.3 mph slider, 94.3 mph fastball — to end the sixth inning.
“He was awesome,” Hinch said of Faedo, who gave up the two-run homer in the eighth inning despite a brilliant performance. “He needs to know that.”
As for Manning, he generated 12 whiffs on 43 swings — a 27.9% whiff rate — with six fastballs, two sweepers and four curveballs. His fastball averaged 94.1 mph.
His curveball was solid until the Marlins teed off against it in the fifth inning.
“It’s tough,” Manning said. “I think that’s part of the game where it’s just like, make them make the adjustment, or
make the adjustment first, and working.”
A 3-0 lead
it was
Just like the Marlins scored their first three runs in the fifth, the Tigers scored their first three runs in the second inning, which began when Kerry Carpenter delivered a single.
An ensuing missed catch error benefited the Tigers.
After Zach McKinstry’s walk, the Tigers took a 1-0 lead when McKinstry broke up what could’ve been an inning-ending double play with a side into Bruján.
“That was dangerous,” Hinch said. “That one was a tough play. I was waiting for (the umpires) to convene and see what the slide was all about, or if they were going to review it. We got away a little bit with the gray area in that rule of avoiding the tag, changing your base line and then the slide into nothing. I mean, he didn’t touch the base. It was an important play
that you can’t just get tagged there and let him throw it to first, but I didn’t know how that play was going to go. It was a coin flip.”
The Tigers tacked on additional runs against right-hander Sixto Sánchez, grabbing a 3-0 lead, with back-to-back RBI singles from Carson Kelly and Riley Greene.
Sanchez allowed three runs (zero earned runs) on five hits and two walks with two strikeouts in 42⁄3 innings, throwing 81 pitches.
The Tigers were thrown out at home plate in the fourth inning, when McKinstry stole second base with two outs and two strikes. The throw down to second sailed into center field. The ball was booted by center fielder Jazz Chisholm Jr., and once that happened, third base coach Joey Cora waved McKinstry home, even though McKinstry wasn’t even halfway to third base.
It was an overly aggressive send. McKinstry was thrown out at home to end the inning.
“The ball to center on the stolen base, he pops up, and there was a misplay in center,” Hinch said, “so Joey is wheeling him right as McKinstry was slowing down, so McKinstry got a little bit of a late read. It’s obviously aggressive. There’s also two outs, and I think there were two strikes on the hitter, too. The wires crossed a little bit just because the timing of the misplay in center caught McKinstry at a bad moment and caught Joey at a bad moment.”