Late dingers doom Detroiters
· Yahoo Sports
The Tigers looked to make it three in a row at home against the Royals in a four-game weekend series. It was a tight game all throughout, not unlike Friday night’s game, but a couple of solo home runs late in the game spoiled a solid pitching performance as the Royals won 3-2 on Saturday afternoon.
Casey Mize made his sixteenth start for the Tigers; his last one was cut short after getting hit by line drive but he ended up being alright. He’s also continuing to experience groin tightness from time to time, and that is not an ailment about which I’d ever make a lewd joke. Mize’s won-loss record coming into today was 4-6 but he had a 2.79 ERA, an even-better 2.62 FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching, what his ERA would be if the defence had been average behind him), and a sensational WHIP of 1.029. In conclusion, win-loss records ain’t worth a hill o’ beans.
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The veteran Michael Wacha took the hill for the visitors. He’s been Mr. Reliable since 2022: in every season he’s had an ERA between 3 and 4, kept his HR/9 innings between 0.8 and 1.3, and WHIP between 1.11 and 1.22. If there’s a knock on him, it’s perhaps that he’s fairly durable but gets put on the shelf for a short spell every year. Good so far in ‘26, though.
Vinnie Pasquantino led off the second with a single, was bunted over to second, took third on a wild pitch, and trotted home on a long sacrifice fly for a 1-0 lead. Early on, Mize wasn’t looking as sharp as one might hope; his fastball was topping out around 93 mph (4.2 cm/ms) and his command looked a little off. Wait… control? Command? I’ve seen that those are two different things, but I’ll be darned if I know the difference between ‘em.
Riley Greene turned on the first pitch of the bottom of the second and slammed a double off the left-centrefield wall, narrowly missing a home run. No matter; Hao-Yu Lee hit a line drive to right that was misplayed by Jac Caglianone, Lee ended up on second and Greene came home to tie the game.
View Link(In that clip, there’s a guy in the crowd at the very end who’s wearing a boat captain’s hat and a sash that looks like it says “GROOM” on it. Best of luck to ya, bud!)
In the third Mize’s pitch speeds crept upwards, with his fastball reaching 95 mph (12.6 furlongs/min) at times, and he was also locating his pitches better. To wit, he ended the fourth with a perfectly-dotted 94-mph heater low and away to Nick Loftin who was, as Ernie Harwell might’ve observed, “Out for excessive window-shopping.” Maybe it just took him a couple of innings to fully warm up.
Lee kept on a-rollin’ in the bottom of the fourth, thwacking a high changeup into the left-field seats for a solo home run to put the Tigers up 2-1.
View LinkMize’s day was done after six very solid innings: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 3 K. He limited the hard contact and coaxed a whole lot of soft fly balls to left field from left-handed hitters. Even though he clearly isn’t at the top of his game, he figured out how to work with what he had and did a great job.
In the bottom of the sixth with one out Kerry Carpenter singled and Greene walked, bringing up Lee who grounded out to second, pushing the runners up to second and third with two outs. Alas, Zack McKinstry popped up harmlessly for the third out.
Kyle Finnegan took over for Mize to start the seventh, and on his second pitch Salvador Perez took the all-time lead in home runs as a Kansas City Royal with his 318th, passing George Brett on that list and tying the game at two. Let’s face it, Perez is gonna mash at least one home run per series against the Tigers, and there it was; merely a matter of time. After a single and a strikeout Finnegan was out and Tyler Holton was in, and a flyout and a groundout ensued.
Wacha carried on into the seventh, and he got the Tigers to go 1-2-3. There was some solid contact off Wacha all day but he managed to, for the most part, scatter it around enough to minimize the damage. The Tigers only struck out 5 times all game but they weren’t finding the outfield grass much either.
Holton carried on to the eighth, as he does so often, and gave up a single to Carter Jensen after a lineout. Jacob Waugespack took over and struck out Lane Thomas, but a wild pitch sent Jensen to second and a grounder booted by Gleber Torres allowed him to advance to third. But Waugespack coolly got Perez to bounce out and the game remained tied.
What wasn’t so cool was Loftin hitting an 0-2 up-and-in Waguespack fastball into the seats with one out in the ninth to put the Royals up 3-2.
So, it was up to the Tigers to get out of the one-run hole they’d dug, and Greene led off with a single on the second pitch to put the tying run on base. The Royals then called upon Old Friend™ Alex Lange to try to close things out; he hasn’t been that great, and he’s ditched the curveball that he used to use a lot with the Tigers. After striking out Lee, McKinstry singled to right and Greene advanced to third to put runners on the corners. But then Vierling tried a safety squeeze, failed to get a bunt down, and struck out, leaving things up to pinch-hitter Spencer Torkelson… who popped up to the catcher to end the game on the first pitch. That’s disappointing.
Final score: Royals 3, Tigers 2
Numbers and Observations- With his second-inning double, Hao-Yu Lee has now hit safely in ten straight games.
- Coming into today’s game, Colt Keith’s July was going pretty well: 11-for-42 for a .262 batting average, but three of those hits were home runs, boosting his OPS to .800. That’s going to go up after today with his multi-hit game, of course.
- Riley Greene had ten putouts in left field. That’s one short of tying the all-time record of 11, shared by four people including Tigers great Willie Horton.
- On this day in 1837 the first commercially-viable electrical telegraph was demonstrated in England. The prefix “tele-” means “at a distance” (think telescope, television, telephone), and “graph” means “to draw.” So, telegraphs draw things far away; kinda makes sense. This has been Etymology Corner for today.