Baltimore – You pitch well and don’t hit. You hit well but can’t pitch or defend well enough to hold a lead. And the opposition, smelling blood in the water, exploits every mistake, every misplay.
This is what a bad baseball stretch looks like and the Tigers can’t seem to shake it.
Not even against a team that’s struggled as badly as they have.
“At a certain point, you’ve got to make your own breaks,” said Jack Flaherty, whose hot-then-cold start mirrored the Tigers’ overall effort in a 7-4 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on a rainy Friday night at Camden Yards. “No game is going to be handed to us. We’ve got to make something happen and play with some aggressiveness. We have to make our own breaks.”
It was the Tigers’ seventh straight loss. They are 2-15 in their last 17 games and are now 12 games under .500 (20-32). If there is a light somewhere at the end of this dark tunnel, the Tigers can’t see it.
“I know what we have in this locker room,” said Kevin McGonigle, who started the game with a first-pitch home run. “We know what we’ve done the last two years. It’s tough right now but it’s a long season. I think everybody’s head’s on the right way and ready to go out each day and fight for each other. It’s a little tough right now, but I know we will come out of it.”
It rained steadily throughout the game, gaining intensity starting in the fourth. There was some urgency to get the game in because the forecast for Saturday was even worse.
“It was fine,” Tigers’ manager AJ Hinch said. “Both teams had to do it. We knew we’d have to fight through just to get to (Saturday) and Saturday doesn’t look good. The conditions weren’t a problem.”
But there comes a point where player safety becomes an issue. Case in point:
On a night when the Tigers already placed one reliever on the injured list (Burch Smith, shoulder inflammation), lefty Brant Hurter left the game in the fifth inning after he seemingly slipped on the wet mound.
“It was a back issue,” Hinch said. “I saw it on the delivery. I don’t know if it was related to the mound or it being wet. He just kept saying it was his back and we got him out of there.”
Hurter got Colton Cowser to fly out to right but he immediately went into a crouch and reached back at his left glut or hip. He was not moving freely and walked slowly off the field in obvious discomfort.
“He will go get imaging and we’ll see where we’re at,” Hinch said.
The wet mound played a role in a run-scoring balk by Flaherty, too. More on that in a minute.
“It’s just the way things are going for our team right now,” Flaherty said. “Lot of good, then a lot of bad.”
The good came early.
McGonigle hit the first pitch of the game, a left-on-left fastball from opener Keegan Akin, into the seats in right field. When Gage Workman and Hao-Yu Lee hit back-to-back doubles off Chris Bassitt in the third, the Tigers led 2-0.
And at that point, Flaherty was dealing. He stuck out five Orioles in the first two innings. He was missing bats (seven whiffs on 16 swings) and beating hitters with his four-seamer in the strike zone (four whiffs on eight swings, five called strikes in eight batters).
It all shifted with one swing. Or, on one misplay, depending on how you want to look at it.
BOX SCORE: Orioles 7, Tigers 4
With one on and one out in the third, Flaherty got Gunnar Henderson to hit a hard ground ball right at shortstop McGonigle. It might’ve tough to double-up the speedy Henderson, but it would’ve been two outs and a runner at first. Except McGonigle didn’t field the ball cleanly.
“It hit the mound, but that’s still a play I’ve got to make 100 times out of a 100,” McGonigle said. “Just frustrating. It’s part of baseball where you make a mistake and the next thing you know a big moment for the other team happens.”
Flaherty got Adley Rutschman to pop out for the second out.
“Kevin has been unbelievable and he bobbles one,” Flaherty said. “You are out there and you just want to pick him up. Just pick up and we were able to get Adley.”
The next hitter was the ever-dangerous Pete Alonso. Flaherty had struck him out in the first, taking a fastball for a called third strike.
“I called Ding (catcher Dillon Dingler) out to talk,” Flaherty said. “Like, what do we have to do with Pete here.”
Flaherty attacked with another fastball, this one up and away, probably not even a strike, and Alonso launched it onto the concourse in right field. His 10th homer flipped the scoreboard, 3-2 Orioles.
“He put a good swing on a pitch that was not a strike,” Flaherty said. “That’s what a really good hitter does. But if you could’ve heard Tork (first baseman Spencer Torkelson) after that, he was like, ‘We’ll get it right back.'”
And they did. The Tigers retook the lead in the fourth on a single by Riley Greene, double by Torkelson and a couple of run-scoring ground balls.
“But then I gave it right back,” Flaherty said. “That’s the frustrating part.”
Things unraveled on Flaherty in a three-run fourth. That inning featured three singles, a run-scoring balk and one of the flukiest home runs you will see.
The balk came with runners at the corners and Coby Mayo up. Flaherty had struck Mayo out in the second and he would do so again in the fourth. But that came after the balk.
“I came to get set and my foot kind of slipped,” Flaherty said. “I went to step off. I guess I paused because (second base umpire Lance Barrett) said I started and stopped. My foot slipped as I was coming off. I believe what he said but it’s unfortunate. Runners at first and third, we have a chance for a ground ball to get out of it. That would’ve changed the way the whole inning looked.”
After Mayo struck out, Jackson Holliday, a left-handed batter, sliced a ball down the left field line. With left fielder Greene chasing, the ball snuck over the 333-marker and just under the foul pole.
“It’s one of those things where you kind of wonder what just happened,” Flaherty said.
Greene hit two balls later in the game 60 feet farther to right-center and center and was out on each. Kind of the way of the world for the Tigers right now.
“Nobody wants to hear it but the way things are going right now, we don’t get off the hook,” Hinch said. “The game doesn’t let you off the hook.”
Flaherty is 0-6 on the season and he’s gone 11 starts now without a win, the longest stretch to start a year in his career. He’s not finished four innings in five of his last seven starts.
“Jack is always a competitor and he’s always trying to find a way,” Hinch said. “Obviously, he’s searching for the consistency that he’s had before in his career and will have again. This is taking a toll on him. It’s taking a toll on all of us. Not just Jack’s performance, just the overall way things have gone.
“But we’ll get back to work and Jack will get back to work to find solutions.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers’ losing skid hits 7 games, drop opener in Baltimore
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
