CHICAGO – Detroit Tigers pitcher Framber Valdez owned it.
Give him that.
“Today was a terrible day,” Valdez said after the worst outing of his career, in his own estimation, after the Chicago Cubs absolutely crushed the Tigers, 11-2, in Wrigley Field on Tuesday, July 21.
Valdez was yanked in the first inning after giving up six runs off five hits and two walks in ⅔ of an inning.
“Today was the worst game ever for myself being on the losing side,” Valdez said through Tigers interpreter Carlos Guillén. “It feels terrible.”
It tied the shortest start of his career (Sept. 22, 2019 against the Los Angeles Angels). “I was questioning myself, what’s going on?” he said. “I’ll do my best to make adjustments. To never let this happen again.”
To make that awful performance sting even more, it came at a horrible time for the Tigers. They came into this game in a precarious position. Their bullpen was drained, starting pitcher Jack Flaherty was placed on the 15-day IL and Keider Montero was not available because he’s moving to the starting rotation.
More than anything, they needed Valdez to pitch deep into this game.
But he couldn’t even get out of the first.
“There were a couple walks in there,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “There was the wind ball. They found some holes. They drove his pitch count up to 40-plus, and it just turned into a really long, ugly inning. So, obviously, you know, started the day in a deep hole, and never really got out of it.”
One awful night at worst time
Before the game, Hinch talked about the importance of this Valdez start.
Of the need for Valdez to go deep.
“In a perfect world, any manager will tell you if the starter can get you into the latter third of the game, all the better,” he said. “Just the other side’s got to cooperate. So if those guys will hit some early count ground balls, we field the ball cleanly, get Framber deep into the game, then you know the bullpen usage can correct itself.”
Unfortunately for the Tigers, none of that happened.
And Hinch had to turn to Ty Madden, who was rushed up from Triple-A Toledo when Flaherty was placed on the IL.
Madden ate up 3 1/3 innings, giving up one run off one hit, walking four while striking out five.
“Ty gave us what he could,” Hinch said. “That was more than I really wanted out of Ty, too, after pitching a couple days ago. Obviously, he flashed some pretty good off-speed. He was a little bit erratic early and gave us what he could. I think getting him up here, he was a little bit more of an emergency, and we were exactly in that, from the first inning.”
Yes, the Tigers were in emergency mode. Just trying to eat innings.
But the Tigers got out of this game by using only two guys from their pen, Madden and Brenan Hanifee, who lasted two innings, giving up a pair of runs.
The silver lining of a blowout
So, where does this leave the Tigers?
Actually, not in horrible shape, thanks to Zach McKinstry, who pitched the seventh, and Jake Rogers, who took the mound in the eighth.
That’s the silver lining in this disaster of a night.
If your bullpen is a mess and you are going to lose a game, you might as well lose really bad and not waste any more arms.
“The two position players helped us get to the finish line,” Hinch said. “Today was like – live to play another day.”
So, that’s the blessing that came from this.
That came from getting absolutely crushed.
The rest of the Tigers’ bullpen got a night of rest and should be available for the finale of this series on Wednesday night.
Montero, who has been incredible, will start for the Tigers.
“We’re still encouraged,” Hinch said. “Montero is a nice fill-in, right? I mean, this is a guy who didn’t deserve to be out of the rotation. We used him creatively, and now he finds himself right back in it.”
This situation has been several days in the making. The Tigers fell into scramble mode after Casey Mize went 3 1/3 innings on Sunday against the Los Angeles Angels before getting pulled because of a groin issue and getting drilled in the hand.
Then, it got worse when Flaherty lasted only four innings on Monday before reporting an elbow issue. It turned out to be right flexor inflammation. It is not thought to be serious.
“Obviously, we need Casey to come back and continue his progress this week until his next start,” Hinch said. “We’ll get Jack healthy. We’ve got some depth that we’ve been able to stay prepared for this, but it’s never good to lose two starters early in the game, then a third starter performance-wise today. But we’ll recover fine.”
As odd as it sounds, the Tigers are in good shape heading into Wednesday’s finale and have a legit shot to win their fourth straight road series. All while being in a race against the trade deadline.
All because they got crushed on Tuesday, which gave them a chance to rest most of their bullpen, while using only McKinstry and Rogers, as ugly as it might have looked.
Sometimes, baseball is just weird.
Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on X @seideljeff.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers’ ugly loss to Cubs comes with weird silver lining
Reporting by Jeff Seidel, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Jeff Seidel, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
