I wish that I could blame the injuries. But this team has no one to blame but themselves this evening. I’m not going to act like there weren’t moments in this game in which Jack Flaherty started to lose his command, but as a whole, that’s a step in the right direction for Jack. This team did not lose tonight's game because of the devastating number of pitching injuries they’ve suffered. You even have an off day tomorrow, which is essentially a free space. You could’ve used this bullpen however you wanted it. It wasn’t the pitching tonight.
Sonny Gray is still a good pitcher, and the guy has had an excellent career, but except for game five of the 2013 ALDS, I swear to God, the Detroit Tigers have just never hit this guy. If there is a starting pitcher in this league who tops out at about 94 mph, odds are the Tigers just aren’t gonna be able to figure him out. You could tell that Detroit didn’t have any plans on scoring tonight after the first few innings.
I’m an absolute all by what I’m saying from this team defensively. I don’t mean that as a compliment. I don’t know how many times I have to say the same thing. This is a really difficult game. Every night you’re going up against a major league opponent, and that major league opponent is going to do all they can to knock off your rhythm and knock off your timing. You can be legitimately talented, hell, you can be great and still lose 60 games a year. If you lose straight up, that’s one thing. But losing, in large part, because of self-inflicted wounds and on-field stupidity, is something this team couldn’t afford to be doing, even if they were at full health. This is a stretch in which they need to be playing cleaner baseball. They’ve done anything but.
Detroit has a much-needed off day tomorrow. I don’t know if it’s going to result in anything good, but at least it’s one day closer to getting back to relative health. Detroit will travel to Kansas City on Friday to play the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Keider Montero, who wasn’t even in the opening day rotation, but has strangely become this team’s ace, will be on the mound going up against Kris Bubic.