Detroit — And so this ugly May two-step continues for the Tigers.
One foot forward, one foot back. No momentum, no progress.
The Los Angeles Angels, with whom they share the worst record in the American League (22-35), beat the Tigers, 7-1, Thursday afternoon to take the three-game series at Comerica Park.
“We’re frustrated because we put so much work in and we’ve put so much attention on so many things and we’re not coming up with results,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “So I clearly see a team that’s beat up a little bit. But the league doesn’t care and our next opponent doesn’t care.”
The Tigers have lost seven straight series for the first time since 2019. Their current 8-23 skid is the worst running stretch in baseball right now. They are 4-12 at home this month, the .250 winning percentage is the lowest of any month since 2019.
The Tigers lost 114 games in 2019.
BOX SCORE: Angels 7, Tigers 1
“The character of this team is great,” Hinch said, when asked about his team’s confidence level. “The want-to, the push is good. We’re going to get back up and compete. It’s a difficult sport in general without carrying the burden of trying to overcome something. You’re just putting something in front of you that makes it more difficult.
“The best way to gain confidence is to get after it and produce.”
There was very little of that Thursday.
Wenceel Perez hit a home run off Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez in the second inning and the Tigers did not muster another hit until Perez led off the eighth with a double. They were in a 5-1 hole by then.
“You don’t get to this point without having a lot of different things you’re dealing with and I don’t want any of this to sound like an excuse.”
The Tigers haven’t been able to put the lineup they started the season with on the field. Parker Meadows, Javier Báez, Gleyber Torres and Kerry Carpenter have all been out with injuries. That’s the reality of it.
And the result of that is the Tigers are about to post one of the most anemic offensive months in their history. They came into the game with a .213 average and .614 team OPS and got three hits Thursday.
“I love these guys,” Hinch said. “Remember we talked before the season about returning the same offense. This is the same offense we started in two playoff series last year and we won one. There’s been injuries and it’s not the same lineup today that it was then.
“I want to get Gleyber back and Kerry back (both are starting rehab assignments) and continue to piece this together. In the meantime, the numbers don’t look pretty, the record doesn’t look pretty and the production doesn’t look pretty. But we are going to get after it again tomorrow.”
If there was a bright spot, it was the performance of Tigers starter Jack Flaherty. He struck out nine in 5.2 innings with just one walk, and that pass was intentional.
“The goal is to win games and give the team a chance to win and I could’ve done a better job of eliminating some damage in that inning,” Flaherty said. “But I am moving in the right direction. That was some of the best stuff I’ve had.”
He established his four-seam fastball early and then started putting Angels hitters away with a smart mix of sliders and knuckle-curves. He had six strikeouts through four innings, five straight at one point.
But the Angels, facing him a second and third time in the fifth, seemed to adjust, attacking his two secondary pitches. They rattled off four hits, including two doubles and in seven hitters scored three runs.
“They made some adjustments there,” Flaherty said. “And the execution wasn’t very good. But that Adell at-bat, that’s the one. Had him 0-2 and couldn’t quite put him away.”
Flaherty got ahead 0-2 on Jo Adell leading off that inning but didn’t finish him. Adell doubled on a 3-2 slider down and away. With one out, Sebastian Rivero singled on a slider, down and away. Left-handed hitting Donovan Walton singled on a knuckle-curve, down and away. And Zach Neto doubled on a 2-0 slider, down and away.
Four of the six hits, and all the damage, came in that one flurry. The rest of the time, Flaherty was in control. He induced 20 swings-and-misses on 43 swings, getting nine whiffs on 21 swings with his four-seamer and seven on 13 swings with his slider.
“Just his aggressiveness was a big step forward in itself,” Hinch said of Flaherty’s outing. “He came out very intent on getting after it. And there was a little angst toward the other side, just the competition between him against that lineup. He wasn’t really chasing punch-outs but he was chasing leverage and getting ahead and he did that well.”
It was an encouraging step forward for him, but in the end, it was the eighth straight time the Tigers have lost on his start day.
“We just have to focus on the day,” Flaherty said. “What happened the day before is irrelevant and what’s going to happen tomorrow is nothing we can control. We control what happens on that given day. It is about winning series and focusing on that. But to do that, you have to focus on each day as it comes and that’s something we’ve done really well.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Frustrated Tigers vow to fight on after losing seventh straight series
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
