Long Ball Stories

I was born in Detroit, and lived there until I was 22 years old.

My father regularly took the various remnants of our large brood to one or two ball games a year at Tiger Stadium, preferably for doubleheaders, first to get more value for his ticket bucks, and second to keep us out of our mother’s hair for twice as long.

When I was an early teen, my friends and I would take the city buses to the ballpark and pay $1.25 to sit in the bleachers, always in the sun-drenched upper deck, overlooking the broad expanse of the deepest centre field in the major leagues.

At beyond 440 feet from the plate, the action in the infield was little more than a faint rumour, but we were savvy fans, and had no trouble following the game from that distance. And as we did we enjoyed the atmosphere of a decidedly working-class clientele that regularly and raucously filled the bleachers to near capacity.

As a young parent in 1976 I returned to Tiger Stadium with my first son, who was five. We saw three games to enjoy the thrill of the atmosphere created by the golden season of Mark (the Bird) Fidrych. Three times we watched him pitch, and three times we watched him dominate the opposition and lead his decidedly mediocre team to victory.

The single beautiful season of Mark Fidrych is one of the saddest and sweetest stories not only in Detroit Tiger lore, but in the history of Major League Baseball. Sometime I must give it my attention and record my thoughts and memories of it, since I lived through it in my own small way.

The Blue Jays came on the scene the next year, and all thoughts of the Tigers and Mark Fidrych diappeared. I attended a number of games that year, including the opening game in the snow on April seventh, 1977. I know there are at least a quarter million Torontonians who were in that crowd of 44,000 that day, but I still have them socked away, my ticket stubs from that Opening Day.

One of the games that I attended that year was when the Tigers came to town. I had wondered how I would feel about the Blue Jays playing my beloved Tigers, but it was no contest: after being swept up in all the excitement of Doug Ault and company, the Tigers were just another road team in greys.

I’ve never been to the new ballpark in Detroit, but I’m happy about it for two reasons: first, that it was build in the inner city core, not far from the location of the old Tiger Stadium. Second, that it’s about as pretty a new ballpark as you could find, especially with the view of Detroit’s classic mid-twentieth-century skyline off in the distance beyond the centre-field fence.

Even after all these years, in a place I’ve never been, I still feel a bittersweet hitch in my throat when the camera opens out on the view from behind the plate at the Detroit ballpark. There’s a moment when I actually expect to hear the soothing, mid-Atlantic twang of the late, great Ernie Harwell, excitedly declaring, “Good evening baseball fans! The Detroit Tigers are on the air!”

I am feeling less bittersweet about the fact that according to the best evidence so far, the Tigers’ “bottoming out and rebuilding from the bottom” seems to be taking considerably less time than anticipated, and after one of the worst seasons in franchise history in 2017, the team is rebounding quickly and may in fact be going entirely in the opposite direction from my beloved Blue Jays.

Friday Night: Don’t Blame it on the Pitchers!

On the face of it, the Tigers won Friday night, sending Toronto to its fourth straight loss, because they jumped on Jaime Garcia for four runs in the second inning and chased him from the game.

But that’s only half the story. Four runs isn’t a whole lot to make up, especially in the spacious confines of the Detroit ballpark, where doubles can fall like the spring rains. And Toronto’s bullpen didn’t allow another run until the seventh inning, and only one then.

So it’s as much the case that fill-in starter Blaine Hardy stonewalled Toronto on two runs and three hits for six innings, and the Tiger bullpen, though it wobbled, didn’t fall under pressure from the Jays late in the game.

Instead of stressing Garcia’s failure to survive the second inning, we need to tip our hats to those that followed: Danny Barnes for an inning and a third after picking up Garcia, Joe Biagini for three sparkling innings giving hope for the future, Tyler Clippard, who gave up the solo homer to Nick Castellanos, and John Axford, who fanned two.

Meanwhile, the depleted Tiger lineup, sans Ian Kinsler, J. D. Martinez, and Justin Upton, not to mention Justin Verlander on the other side of the ball, seems to be doing just fine, thank you very much, even if they started out looking like the Boston Red Sox at their flukiest on this night.

Poor Jaime Garcia gave up two runs in the second on the first three batters, the most damanging blow a triple by Jacoby Jones that Kevin Pillar missed with a dive. Jacoby drove in Victor Martinez, on with a flare single to left, and James McCann, who grounded one through the depleted left side of the Toronto infield.

Leonys Martin scored Jones with a groundout to short. Jose Iglesias doubled to left and stole third. He scored on a single by Jeimer Candelario to give the Tigers a 4-0 lead. After the Toronto lefty fanned Tiger rookie second baseman Ronnie Rodriguez for the second out, Nick Castellanos followed with a base hit. John Gibbons decided it was time to pull the dedevilled Garcia, who had only notched five outs while giving up the four runs and leaving two runners on.

But as I said you can’t pin this one wholly on Jaime Garcia. Despite the fact that the Jays’ bullpen did a great job of shutting down the aggressive Tigers’ hitters, they could do nothing with Blaine Hardy, who threw a lot more like a mid-rotation regular than a fill-in starter on a sub-.500 team.

The Jays finally got to Hardy in the top of the sixth, when Teoscar Hernandez plated a leadoff walk to Aledmys Diaz with a deep drive to centre that deflected off centre fielder Leonys Martins glove for a triple. Hernandez would eventually score on a sacrifice fly by Kendrys Morales to cut the Tigers’ lead in half and give the visitors a lift.

When Hardy finished his solid six, he turned it over to a Detroit bullpen that’s had its ups and downs this season (see sub .500 record) but was spot on in support of Harday.

Buck Farmer pitched around two base hits in the seventh, Artie Lewicki mopped up a bit of a mess left by Johnny Barbato, who gave up a hit and a walk in the eighth, and Chad Greene picked up his fourteenth save when Solarte grounded into a fielder’s choice after Hernandez’ two-out single, and the Tigers had drawn first blood in this series between under-achievers.

Saturday Afternoon Heartbreak:

If there’s been a game in this string of sorry losses that hurt just a little more than others it was this one.

Jay Happ was on the mound for Toronto, a signal event that usually suggests that the Jays would have a better than average chance of recording a win. Happ is the only starter who’s been consistent in giving them a chance to win.

And for what seems like the first time in ages the Toronto offence gave Happ not one, but two leads.

But the snake-bitten Jays can’t depend on anything these days, not even Jay Happ.

Happ held Detroit to two runs in the first four innings on 66 pitches, but after Luke Maile and Yangervis Solarte had given him a 4-2 lead with solo homers in the top of the fifth, he gave up two runs to Detroit to tie the game, threw 40 pitches doing it, and was finished for the night after five innings at 106 pitches, only able to keep the slate even for Toronto at 4-4.

You had to think early on that it wasn’t going to be a great day for Happ. After Detroit starter (and former Toronto farmhand Matt Boyd) pitched around a two-out walk to Justin Smoak in the top of the first, Detroit leadoff hitter Jeimer Candelario smoked Happ’s first pitch into the left-field seats for an instant 1-0 Tiger lead.

The Jays nicely reversed the score in the top of the third. Luke Maile doubled to left leading off. With one out Solarte lined one into left centre for a double to score Maile, and Smoak immediately scored Solarte with a single to right. With the slow Smoak on first and the slower Kendrys Morales at the plate, Boyd threw a pitcher’s best friend double play ball to Morales to end the rally.

The Tigers tied it again in the bottom of the third, with a little help from the shamrock bucket. With one out Dixon Machado hit a ball into left centre. Curtis Granderson moved to his left, dove for the ball, got his glove on it, but had it roll out as he hit the ground.

Machado ended up on second, whence he scored on Castellanos’ two-out double to left, and the game was tied again. Needless to say, if the ball sticks in Granderson’s glove, Castellanos’ double is harmless.

After both Boyd and Happ retired the side in the fourth, Maile and Solarte provided their instant lightning to give the Jays a second lead at 4-2 going to the bottom of the fifth.

But Happ couldn’t hold the lead against these tough Tigers. Two walks figured into this being Happ’s last inning, but only the first one, to Jose Iglesias after he struck out the leadoff man Jacoby Jones, figured in the scoring. With Iglesias on first, second baseman Dixon Machado drove one to right centre that just beat the reach of Pillar, and went for a run-scoring double.

Happ got the second out with a big assist to Solarte at third. Candelario hit a shot to the third baseman’s glove side, but Solarte came up with it and threw him out. Castellanos, consistently tough on Toronto pitching over the last few years, singled the opposite way to right to drive in Machado to tie the game.

Happ walked Miguel Cabrera, on an eighth-pitch 3-2 count before Victor Martinez grounded out to second to end the inning. If anything, the meaningless walk to Cabrera was the final straw in preventing Happ from pitching into the sixth.

Matt Boyd trucked on into the sixth and eventually went seven innings for the Tigers, holding them in check for his last two innings of work, giving up only a walk to Luke Maile in the seventh. Louis Coleman pitched a clean eighth to preserve the tie for the Tigers.

Meanwhile, John Axford pitched a sterling two innings to make up for Happ’s short start. He set down six in a row, striking out two on thirty pitches.

Bringing us to the bottom of the eighth and the meltdown of Seunghwan Oh.

Oh got the first out when Castellanos flew out to right field. But then Miggy Cabrera hit a grounder up the middle for a base hit, and was replaced by pinch runner Victor Reyes.

Toronto caught a break when Victor Martinez’ drive to left centre bounced over the fence for a ground-rule double, forcing Reyes to stop at third. Ronny Rodriguez ran for Martinez, so that both of the hard-hitting plug horses were out of the game. Niko Goodrun was walked intentionally to load the bases.

This brought catcher John Hicks to the plate. Hicks hadn’t hit a ball in fair territory all night, going down swinging twice to Happ and once to Axford. But he was okay with Oh. He reached out and poked a soft liner over second that scored the two pinch runners and sent Goodrum to third. Jacoby Jones knocked in the third run with a liner to left for a sacrifice fly.

After Iglesias lofted a base hit to left, moving Hicks up to second, John Gibbons had seen enough of Oh and brought in Tim Mayza, who got Manny Machado to fly out to left on the second pitch and end the misery.

With the wind totally out of their sails, the Jays went meekly in order in the ninth before the slants of Joe Jiminez, who only had to throw 13 pitches to pick up his first save of the year.

Sunday Revival: Once a Week is Better than Nonce a Week (I guess):

After the 4:00 start on Saturday it was a short turnaround on Sunday for the traditional 1:00 afternoon start.

Sunday was a matchup of young bulls, rotation studs of recent years who’ve been struggling in 2018. It was Aaron Sanchez versus Michael Fulmer, and devil take the hindmost.

Which turned out to be Michael Fulmer, who has had significant success against Toronto in the past couple of years.

It took a long time for somebody to blink in this one, though, in a game that was scoreless through the first five innings.

If you looked just at the pitching lines, especially the pitch count, Fulmer was pitching a gem and Sanchez was struggling. Sanchez retired seven in a row before giving up a base hit and a walk in the third, while Fulmer allowed only a walk, immediately erased on a double play.

Yet Fulmer had thrown 25 pitches, and Sanchez 49.

After the fourth inning the discrepancy was even worse. Fulmer retired the side quickly to go to 40 pitches. Sanchez struck out the side and walked a second batter, but by the time he sat down he was up to 71 pitches; he had thrown nearly twice as many pitches as Fulmer, and it was still no score.

The disparity evened up somewhat in the fifth when Sanchez put the Tigers down on 12 pitches, to take him to 83. Prior to this, Fulmer had given up his first hit and faced his first mild problem in the top of the fifth.

In fact, he gave up base hits to both Russell Martin and Devon Travis, but unfortunately for the Jays before Travis’ base hit, he and Martin botched an attempted hit-and-run, and Martin was thrown out at second by Tigers’ catcher James McCann. Fulmer racked up 21 pitches in the inning, leaving him at a still very economical 61 through five.

But efficiency isn’t always the only issue when it comes to pitching, and in the top of the sixth Fulmer made a fatal mistake and Toronto was able to capitalize on it to take a lead they’d never relinquish.

The first two Jays’ hitters, Diaz and Granderson, went down quickly, but then Fulmer went to a full count on Solarte before losing him. The only thing worse, sometimes, than a leadoff walk is a two-out, nobody on walk. Gifted with an unexpected plate appearance, Justin Smoak made the most of it and became the first Blue Jay to reach second base against Michael Fulmer. He also reached third and home after taking a 3-2 pitch deep to right to give Toronto, and the hard-working Sanchez, a 2-0 lead.

It was a lead that Leonys Martin immediately cut in half in the bottom of the sixth with a leadoff home run to right. Sanchez gathered himself after the Martin shot, though, and managed to keep Castellanos in the ball park on a deep fly to right. Then he struck out Cabrera, walked Candelario, and fanned Niko Goodrum to finish six tough innings over which he gave up one run, 2 hits, walked three, and fanned seven on exactly 100 pitches.

An interesting highlight of Sanchez’ sixth inning is that when he struck out the dead-cinch future Hall of Famer Miggy Cabrera, it stretched Cabrera’s record at the plate against Sanchez to 0 for 14.

Michael Fulmer was sent back out for the top of the seventh, but only two batters into the inning, a ground single to centre by Pillar and a walk to Russell Martin, Tigers’ manager Ron Gardenhire turned to the impressively-named Warwick Saupold to take over on the mound.

Alas for the Tigers, Saupold’s name is far more impressive than his performance was, at least on this day, and a tight ball game was about to become a big Toronto lead.

The first batter Saupold faced was Devon Travis, who hit one to the wall in right field, where Nick Castellanos came down from a leaping catch that robbed Travis. Pillar, reading the hit well, tagged up and advanced to third.

Randal Grichuk, hitless since his return from the DL on Friday night, lined a double into the left-field corner which scored Pillar and brought Russell Martin around to third base. Aledmys Diaz hit a liner to right that Castellanos tried to Pillar with a dive, but he’s not Pillar, and it was ruled a trap. Martin scored, and Grichuk moved up to third on the hit.

The Jays were now up 4-1, but weren’t finished yet.

Saupold fanned Granderson for the second out, but Solarte grounded one through the bunched left side to score Grichuk and bring Diaz to third. This brought Smoak back to the plate for the second straight inning, and he juiced another one, a deep drive to centre that bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double, scoring Diaz but forcing Solarte to stop at third.

So Smoak picked up six total bases and three RBIs in two consecutive plate appearances over two innings. The Jays now led 6-1; when Saupold finally fanned Morales the rising was over.

Tyler Clippard took over for Sanchez for the Tigers’ seventh and threw what has become a typical Clipp-ish inning: strikeout, popup, ringing double off left-field wall by Jose Iglesias, strikeout. We just have to breathe a sigh of relief that Iglesias’ launch angle wasn’t just a little higher. (In layman’s terms, which I prefer: thank god he didn’t hit it out.)

Righty Zac Reininger pitched the top of the eighth for Detroit, and he got bit on the butt by a one-out walk followed by a botched double-play ball, and paid a two-run price for his troubles. After Pillar hit a soft liner to second off the end of his bat, Reininger lost the plate and walked Martin on a 3-1 pitch. Travis hit a grounder to short that was tailor-made for an inning-ending double play, but the rookie second baseman Rodriguez dropped the ball, and the Tigers only got the force at second.

This gave Grichuk a shot at the plate, and like Smoak earlier in the game, he made the most of his opportunity. After the line double to left in the seventh, Grichuk hit a liner to right that carried over the fence for two more runs.

Once again, an error can’t be assigned if an out is recorded but an obvious double play isn’t turned because of a bobble, so the runs were earned. No fair on Reininger, but he shouldn’t have walked Martin in the first place.

As for Grichuk, if this Randal Grichuk is the guy we traded Dominic Leone to the Cardinals for, well, welcome to Toronto, Randal, as you duplicate Smoak’s feat with a double, a homer, and three RBIs in consecutive plate appearances in consecutive innings.

With an 8-1 lead it didn’t matter much, with an off-day coming up, that Danny Barnes and Aaron Loup couldn’t put the Tigers away in the bottom of the eighth, and that Ryan Tepera had to come in and get two outs to preserve an 8-4 lead.

After Johnny Barbato dodged some bullets in the top of the ninth, Tepera came back out and finished the five-out stint with panache, on a ground ball and two strikeouts.

What does matter in the big picture is another poor performance by Danny Barnes, who should have been breezing, starting an inning with an 8-1 lead. But, no, he had to walk the leadoff batter Martin, and give up a one-out single to Cabrera, causing John Gibbons to pull the plug quickly.

But Barnes’ ducks were on the pond, and sometimes like Sunday afternoon in Detroit, those ducks have to come home to roost. Good job there weren’t more of them, and that the Jays had built a big lead.

Now we get to see whether our boys can build on this one win when the fearsome Yankees come to town for two, Tuesday and Wednesday.