SAN FRANCISCO – They’ll have nights like these, games like these. In fact, they’ve had games like these, and they hadn’t had so many of them in May, they wouldn’t sting so much here in August.
Eleven hits … two runs?
That’s a ratio that’ll cost you, and it cost the Detroit Tigers on Friday, Aug. 7, at Oracle Park against the middling San Francisco Giants, in a 5-2 loss.
Though “middling” might be kind.
Even so, the Giants had won 48 games before this series and so if a team leaves 11 runners on base and leaves a 77-mph curve over the middle of the plate for the one truly dangerous hitter in the lineup?
That’ll cost you, too.
The Tigers outhit the Giants but couldn’t outplay them, and in the end that’s all that matters, not the records.
They can’t afford many more losses like these, when one of their best young pitchers is on the mound and their offense gives itself chance after chance after chance.
Keider Montero didn’t have his usual control and the bats, while semi-productive, weren’t timely. The Tigers fell to 56-60, and their chance to return home having finally climbed back to .500 is gone – this week, at least.
At the plate: Hit parade, but where are the runs?
The Tigers put two runners apiece on base four straight innings and got nothing to show for it. And it all began so promisingly.
As they have so many times on this road trip, they jumped on the starting pitcher and immediately put up a run in the first. Dillon Dingler hit into a fielder’s choice to drive in Kevin McGonigle, and after giving up two runs in the bottom of the inning , the Tigers tied it in the second when Zack McKinstry hit a two-out single scoring Spencer Torkelson (who’d led off with a single as part of a three-hit night).
It looked like the Tigers would keep scoring until Montero found his groove, but the runs remained just … out … of … reach despite several scoring chances.
McKinstry led off the fifth with a single. He took third when McGonigle followed with a single – his second of the game, and the Tigers quickly had runners at the corners with no outs. But then Gleyber Torres swung at a first-pitch slider and popped it up into foul territory down the right-field line.
Dingler hit the ball to a similar spot; only his popup stayed a few feet fair. Riley Greene flied out to left.
The Giants added a run in the bottom of the inning when former Tigers prospect Willy Adames (back when Dave Dombrowski was around to flip propects for vets, instead of the other way around) yanked it over the left-field fence to make it 5-2.
In the sixth, the Tigers again put two runners on, and while McKinstry fouled off five straight pitches in an epic 11-pitch at-bat with two outs, he couldn’t best Houser, hitting a soft fly to left center.
In the seventh, you guessed it, the Tigers put two runners on base – this time at second and third – though also with two outs. A.J. Hinch pinch hit Eduardo Valencia for DH Colt Keith to get the righty-lefty matchup. Valencia struck out looking.
In the eighth, well, naturally, they put two runners on – again with two outs and, again, came up empty.
On the mound: Keider Montero gets little support
Montero struggled to locate his fastball, his slider, his sinker, everything, really, as he fell behind in the count in the first few innings and nearly got out of trouble in the first until he hung a 77-mph curve middle-high on a 2-2 count to Rafael Devers with a runner on base.
Devers blasted it over the center-field wall to give the Giants the lead. In the second inning, Montero walked the leadoff batter, Drew Gilbert, on five pitches, and then gave up a single to put runners at first and second.
A sacrifice bunt moved the runners up. Montero struck out Christian Koss and it looked like he might escape, even after he walked the bases full. But Jung Hoo Lee singled to center, driving in two.
Montero settled down in the third inning and saved the bullpen by getting through six innings.
Next up: The trial of Jobe
The season debut of Jackson Jobe arrives Saturday (7:15 p.m. Fox), who will almost certainly be on a pitch count. If he gives the Tigers four good innings, that would be a solid return.
Jobe is returning after a nearly 14-month absence after he Tommy John surgery. The 2021 MLB Draft pick – taken No. 3 overall by the Tigers – possesses triple-digit heat and showed relatively good command during his rehab starts.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers strike early but get blasted by the Bay by Giants
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
