St. Petersburg, Fla. — There was a somewhat cheeky item in the game notes Tuesday. Under the tag line, “June Slug,” it was noted the Tigers’ .821 slugging percentage led all of baseball and their 1.239 OPS led the American League – for the month of June.
Was it cheeky or portentous?
The sample size doubled Tuesday, the second day of June, but so did the production.
The Tigers hit lefty Steven Matz with a barrage of extra-base damage in the first two innings and rode it to their second straight win, 8-0, over the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.
“That was our message,” said Spencer Torkelson. “The past is the past. We have to own it, move on and make an adjustment heading into a new month. The boys did a quick reset and it’s been huge. There’s no secret sauce other than it’s a new month and it felt like a new opportunity on offense.”
The win snaps a streak of eight straight series losses. And it was their first road series win since taking two of three in San Diego in the first week of the season.
“It’s a really long season, still,” said Gleyber Torres, who in his first game back off the injured list kickstarted the party with a 433-foot, lead-off home run to left-center. “We still have four months left. We know how we started but we are trying to turn the page in June. We don’t think about what you did or didn’t do in the last few games.
“I really believe if we keep playing well, we have a special group and nothing has changed. Nobody is trying to do too much, just win the game.”
Torres’ blast certainly lit a fire in the dugout.
“That was an awesome start to a ballgame,” Torkelson said. “I’m so happy for him. He was on the IL for a while and to come back and produce that quickly is awesome.”
Matt Vierling followed with a triple and Dillon Dingler plated him with a sacrifice fly. The exit velocities on those three rockets, in order, 106.3 mph, 102 mph ad 102.1 mph.
“I wasn’t looking to be a hero, I just want to play the right way and I got the first opportunity to start the night,” Torres said. “It feels happy, for sure. But I was more happy when I saw Vierling hit the triple. That meant we’re rolling.”
BOX SCORE: Tigers 8, Rays 0
In the second inning, Torkelson doubled and Wenceel Perez launched a 404-foot homer. After doubles by Zack Short and Vierling, the Tigers were up 5-0 and Matz was out of the game.
The Tigers put nine balls in play off Matz with an average exit velocity of 99.8 mph, six extra-base hits. The homers came off two-seam fastballs (sinkers).
“We’re getting our swing off and we’re on time for the fastball,” Torkelson said. “We were getting beat (in May) on fastballs and when you are late on fastballs, you are also going to be late and chase a lot of off-speed pitches. We are getting our swings off and having a really solid team approach.”
June slug, indeed.
Torkelson finished with a double, single, walk and scored two runs. Perez had two hits, knocked in two and scored two. Short, hitting in the No. 9 spot, had a double, single and a sacrifice fly. And Vierling knocked in two with two hits and a sacrifice fly.
Riley Greene homered for the second straight game. He curled one inside the right-field foul pole off lefty Ian Seymour leading off the seventh inning. It was his sixth homer.
The Tigers hit eight home runs in the first two games of this series. They had 51 total in the first 60 games.
They even forced the Rays to use a position player to pitch the ninth inning, shortstop Ben Williamson.
“It’s nice to win the series,” manager AJ Hinch said. “And it’s nice to see our guys playing free and relaxed and having fun. Winning is fun.”
Unlike Monday, there was no late drama in this one, thanks to some stout work first by starter Jack Flaherty and then lefty Enmanuel De Jesus.
“What De Jesus did was incredible,” said Flaherty, who allowed five hits in five scoreless innings. “For us to go through just two pitchers after a longer day yesterday was awesome. All credit to De Jesus and what he did. That was probably bigger than what I was able to do to get through five innings.”
Debatable.
Flaherty had to pitch out of some trouble but he did not let the Rays off the mat.
He put the first two runners on in the third, the last two hitters in the Rays’ order, but set down the top three hitters to escape the mess, finishing off Jonathan Aranda with a nasty, 2-2 knuckle-curve, leaving the dangerous Yandy Diaz on the on-deck circle.
“Jack knew going in we were going to lean heavily on him,” Hinch said. “I think getting through those stressful innings was big. He didn’t cave, he didn’t concede, he didn’t make a mistake. He just kept going at them and got some key outs.”
In the fourth inning, Flaherty struck out Jose Mesa, Jr., with another knuckle-curve, and then froze Hunter Feduccia with a low-rail, 96-mph four-seamer to strand runners at second and third.
“Credit to (catcher Dillon) Dingler and (pitching coach Chris) Fetter, we had a good game plan going in,” said Flaherty who, struck out six, three with the knuckle-curve. “They were calling for (the knuckle-curve) in certain spots and we got some strikeouts against a team that doesn’t strike out a lot. And we got them when we needed them, and some weak contact, too.”
After seven straight pitcher losses, the most to start a season by any Tigers pitcher since Jordan Zimmerman in 2018, Flaherty earned his first win.
“It is good to get one,” he said.
The Tigers had to empty the bullpen to secure the 10-9 win Monday. De Jesus was the only reliever not used. Thus, he was called on to take it home. And he did so, impressively, dispatching all 11 hitters he faced and earning a four-inning save — the first of his big-league career.
“De Jesus hasn’t pitched a ton,” Hinch said. “We’ve been waiting for the moment to get him a bulk role. He was also going to be a difference-maker and he came in and got the double-play ball (in the sixth) and a punch-out and squashed their mid-game momentum and just kept filling up the strike zone. On a night when we knew we were thin in the pen, both De Jesus and Jack did a good job stepping up and doing their part.”
And they combined to earn the fourth shutout win of the season.
“There is still a lot of baseball left,” Torres said. “And it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. We have a real good opportunity to do something. We have to be consistent and it’s not easy. Baseball is hard. But the way we’ve responded these last two games was special.”
Taking two straight against the Rays at the Trop is no small feat, either. They came into the series 21-6 at home and they continue to pace the American League East.
“We believe our best beats everyone’s best,” Torkelson said. “They are really good but so are we. We didn’t show that in May but we’re going to continue to show it moving forward.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers blank Rays for 2-0 start in June: ‘The past is the past’
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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