Detroit — Tigers manager AJ Hinch offered a rather timely reminder before the game. The season does not end on Aug. 3.
“We’re going to wake up the day after the (trade) deadline with a large portion of our season yet to be played,” he said. “We’ve got to be good at understanding where we are today, where we could be depending on the next two series and then afterward. Regardless, we have a good chance to win because we have good players.”
There will still be 50 games on the schedule after the deadline, nearly a third of the season. Important perspective, especially after the Tigers lost their third straight game, 8-5, to a Baltimore Orioles team that they are trying to chase down in the Wild Card race.
The Tigers fall back to seven games under .500 (50-57), 4.5 games out of the Wild Card and 6.5 back in the Central Division at game’s end.
The game turned into an odd kind of shootout, with the Tigers answering Orioles home runs with sacrifice flies, akin to bringing knives to a gunfight.
The Orioles swatted three home runs – Leodys Taveras, Coby Mayo and Tyler O’Neil. The Tigers stayed close with sacrifice flies by Hao-Yu Lee, who also extended his hitting streak to 12 games, Matt Vierling and Spencer Torkelson.
BOX SCORE: Orioles 8, Tigers 5
Try as they might, the Tigers never could climb out of the four-run hole dug by starter Keider Montero, who endured a rare off night.
Since allowing four runs on June 6, he had posted a 5-1 record with one save and a 1.80 ERA in his 10 outings before Monday.
He gets a little grace for this little hiccup.
His stuff seemed flat early in the game and the Orioles banged out nine hits and scored six runs against him in 4.1 innings. Two of the runs were unearned because of an error by third baseman Colt Keith that set up a two-run second inning.
He settled in briefly, setting down six straight hitters between the end of the third and into the fifth.
The Tigers had just made it a one-run game when Taveras crushed an elevated, 3-1 fastball, sending it 416 feet over the wall in right field.
After Jackson Holliday produced his third hit of the game, Montero was replaced by right-hander Brenan Hanifee.
Mayo, who was hitting .156 off right-handed fastballs, muscled an elevated sinker over the bullpens in left-center, restoring a four-run lead for the Orioles.
Montero’s velocity was down a tick on all his pitches. His spin rates were also well below his norm. The result was one strikeout, just six whiffs on 35 swings and an average exit velocity of 90.6 mph on 21 balls put in play.
The Tigers cut the lead to 7-5 in the fifth. After Dillon Dingler (single) and Keith (double) set the table against starter Kyle Bradish, Torkelson hit a sacrifice fly and Zach McKinstry, who tripled and scored in the second inning, ripped an RBI single.
Cowser’s pinch-hit homer off lefty Tyler Holton leading off the sixth made it a three-run game.
The Tigers didn’t score against the Orioles’ bullpen. Yennier Cano, Grant Wolfram (from Davenport University in Grand Rapids), Andrew Kittredge and Rico Garcia, collected the last 13 outs.
This story will be updated.
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers drop opener against Orioles, losing streak at three games
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Chris McCosky, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
