DETROIT GETS SERIES SPLIT AGAINST TWINS
The Tigers’ offensive struggles were lingering like a bad smell on Sunday.
Down 3-0 in the eighth inning, having been utterly stymied by Twins’ 6-9 right-hander Bailey Ober for six-plus innings, they looked dead in the water.
And then Javier Báez leaned into a hanging, 2-2 sweeper from lefty reliever Caleb Thielbar and sent it 399 feet into the left-field seats for his first homer of the year. A spark.
Four batters later and the Tigers had taken the lead and held on to salvage a split with the Twins in the four-game series at Comerica Park, 4-3. It was the 800th managerial win for skipper AJ Hinch.
“I finally got one,” said Báez, who had gone 83 plate appearances since he last hit a homer in Anaheim on Sept. 15 last season. “I’m still working. Today I feel good. Yesterday I felt good, too. Just need to be consistent every day and take it out there. I’ve been thinking too much. Once I slow everything down, I should be good.”
It was a most improbable rally, at least according to Statcast data. After Báez’s homer, Carson Kelly, against right-handed reliever Griffin Jax, reached on a ground ball (84 mph off the bat) that shortstop Willi Castro couldn’t field. It was scored a single.
Riley Greene then rolled a ground ball through the middle — hit probability .130 — sending
Kelly to third.
With runners at the corners, Mark Canha hit a tricky bouncer to third base that got through third baseman Kyle Farmer. Hit probability was .080. Both runners scored to tie the game.
“Joey (Cora) is coaching third base, so I know I’m going,” said Greene of his first-to-home dash. “Right when I saw the ball down the line and I saw that he missed it, I was thinking home. Once I saw Joey waving, just going nuts, then I was like, ‘OK, put the head down and get there.’
“But I knew it had a shot to get all messed up.”
Canha significantly rumbled to third base on the play and scored the game-winner on a bloop single to right-center by Spencer Torkelson.
“This is just another example of the near-safe, near-out discussion — you’ve got to play aggressively,” Hinch said, alluding to the seven bases runners the Tigers have had thrown out this season. “Everything matters on that play. The bounding ball down the left-field line, you don’t know if it’s going to hit that cutout and Riley has to get a good secondary lead and cut the bag at second and look at Joey.
“And Canha doesn’t give up on the play and gets to third. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it