Tigers bats dormant in nightcap loss
Long day. Regrettable day. Forgettable day.
The Tigers lost both ends of a doubleheader Saturday against the Central Division rival Twins — 11-5 in 12 innings in the opener and 4-1 in a lackluster nightcap.
They came into Game 2 with the scars from the seven-run, 12th inning atrocity still fresh. They also came in with a depleted bullpen and a starting pitcher, Matt Manning, called up from Triple-A Toledo as the 27th man, who hadn’t pitched in nine days.
The Twins weren’t much better off, playing without the starting left side of their infield (injured shortstop Carlos Correa and third baseman Royce Lewis) and starting outfielder Max Kepler.
Plus starting Triple-A right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson, who had two big-league starts under his belt — his big-league debut against the Tigers in 2022 and one last season. He’d fared poorly early on at St. Paul, also, allowing seven earned runs in eight innings.
Manning pitched into the seventh inning, which was imperative, but a solo home run by Edouard Julien in the third inning and a two-run homer by former Tiger Willi Castro in the sixth dug a hole
the scuffling Tigers’ offense couldn’t climb out of.
The home run balls vexed Manning in spring training, too, and were a prime factor in him not winning a spot in the rotation. Six of the eight hits he allowed in 16 spring innings were homers.
Otherwise, Manning pitched very well Saturday. He posted seven strikeouts and got 12 whiffs on 50
swings. He also got 18 called strikes, 12 with his four-seam fastball.
Lefty Joey Wentz blanked the Twins the last 2.1 innings.
But the bats never heated. They were dominated by Twins starter Joe Ryan in Game 1 (12 strikeouts, one earned run) and couldn’t get to Woods Richardson in the nightcap.
Woods Richardson stymied the Tigers for six innings, allowing just two hits, both singles in the second inning when a sacrifice fly by Javier Báez scored the only run.
One of those hits was an infield hit with a head
slide into first base by rookie Wenceel Perez, his
first big-league hit in his first big-league start. He also stole his first bigleague base in that inning.
Woods Richardson set down 14 straight hitters after the Perez single.
Perez hustled his way to a double in the seventh inning against lefty reliever Kody Funderburk, which set the Tigers up at second and third with two outs. But Twins manager
Rocco Baldelli summoned right-hander Cole Sands and he got Báez to ground out to end the threat.
The Tigers managed four hits in Game 2.
The Tigers have struggled mightily to put the ball in play this series. They struck out 15 times against Twins pitching Friday night, 17 times in Game 1 and 10 times in
the nightcap.
Counting the Tigers’ rain-delayed win Friday night, the teams played three games in less than 24 hours with the finale set for 1:40 p.m. Sunday.