Atlanta – There are losses and then there are games like Tuesday night at Truist Park.
The Tigers not only lost the first of a three-game series to the 21-win Atlanta Braves, 5-2, they lost two key players to injury.
Starting pitcher Casey Mize strained his right groin and left the game in the bottom of the third inning. Centerfielder Javier Báez was carted off the field in the top of fifth after making an awkward slide into first base and rolling his right ankle.
“It sucks,” said Spencer Torkelson, whose five-game homer streak ended. “I don’t know what the diagnoses are, but in the moment you feel for the guys and it stings. But you have to push through it. Next man up. We’ve got to pick each other up.”
Mize, pitching in front of some 40 friends and family members, struck out three in the first two innings. But in the second inning, television cameras caught him grimacing after a couple of pitches to Dominic Smith.
BOX SCORE: Braves 5, Tigers 2
He came back out in the third inning and gave up back-to-back doubles. Mike Yastrzemski dropped one on the right field chalk and Ronald Acuna, Jr., dropped one on the left field line.
Mize got Drake Baldwin to tap one back to him, but he came up gingerly after making the throw to first.
He came out of the game without even attempting a practice pitch.
“It wasn’t a one pitch grab kind of thing,” Mize said. “It was a gradual tightening. I made it through that (second) inning and did some tests between innings. It felt like it was good enough to go back out there. But it never really went away … Like, it didn’t get worse, I just know it’s not feeling great and they (manager AJ Hinch and the trainers) could see that in my body language and they came out.”
Mize, who went on the injured list on May 10 last year with a hamstring strain, is scheduled for an MRI Wednesday morning.
“I never had a groin (injury) before so this is new to me,” he said. “I feel pretty good about things, as good as you can. The tests we’ve done so far seem positive. Tomorrow, literally, we will have a clearer picture.”
Báez, who left the ballpark in a walking boot, will also get an MRI Wednesday.
After Hao-Yu Lee doubled to lead off the fifth inning, Báez hit a ground ball to shortstop. Mauricio Dubon’s throw was high, pulling first baseman Matt Olson off the bag. Báez tried to avoid the tag by sliding.
“He came off the bag but I saw him land on the bag with his left leg,” Báez said. “I was going to dive to try to skip the tag and stay on my feet. But my cleat stuck in the dirt and it went straight over. I don’t know how I didn’t break it, honestly.”
He was unable to put pressure on the ankle initially, which is why the cart was called. Once he got back to the trainer’s room and had some treatment done, he was able to put pressure on it.
“I feel much better now than right after it happened,” Báez said.
The Tigers will have some tough decisions to make if Báez has to go on the injured list. Rookie Kevin McGonigle, who extended his on-base streak to 25 games with an infield single, is the only shortstop on the 40-man roster.
Zach McKinstry (hip/abdomen inflammation) is still on the injured list, as is Triple-A shortstop Trei Cruz. Lee could fill in at shortstop, as could non-roster utility player Gage Workman.
If Mize needs an IL stint, right-hander Sawyer Gipson-Long, who is built up to 80 pitches at Triple-A Toledo, would be an option.
“We don’t now the severity of either injury yet,” Hinch said. “We will know more tomorrow.”
Lefty reliever Brant Hurter, who got the cold call to replace Mize and was brilliant (2.2 perfect innings) and righty Burch Smith got the game through the seventh inning and the Tigers were down 3-0.
“You want your guys to get you to the finish line but we also want to win the game,” Hinch said. “It wasn’t just logging innings. They did a good job of keeping us in the game.”
But the Tigers (15-15) couldn’t get anything going against a pair of Braves’ lefties. Veteran starter Martin Perez, who blanked the Tigers on two hits over five innings. He induced six ground ball outs.
The Tigers worked him for four walks but couldn’t cash in any of them.
The closest they came to scoring against Perez was in that fifth inning. With Lee on second, Gleyber Torres walked and McGonigle slammed a ball 353 feet to right field, which Acuna caught with his back against the wall.
After toiling against the crafty Perez, the Tigers next faced lefty reliever Didier Fuentes and his 98-mph power game. He pitched two scoreless and hitless innings, getting the game to the back end of the Braves bullpen.
Asked about the difficulty of losing two key players early, Hinch said, “We had difficulty with two outs and guys on base. We had six or seven at-bats where we just couldn’t find that extra hit. We drew a lot of walks. Their guys were living on the edge a little bit but we couldn’t quite break through.”
Not until the ninth when Wenceel Perez, who entered the game for Baez, slugged a two-run homer to dead center. By that time Ozzie Albies had made it a 5-0 game with a two-run homer off Tyler Holton in the eighth.
“Health-wise, we have to deal with whatever it is,” Hinch said. “We’re more than equipped to handle it competitively. We just needed to find a way to get that big hit.”
The Braves are the first team in baseball to win 21 games.
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers’ Báez, Mize injured in loss to Braves in opener: ‘Next man up’
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
