I’m not usually a guy who likes to use terms like "must win" during the baseball season. Obviously, if it’s a win-or-go-home game, I understand, but I’ve seen a lot of baseball teams lose games that their fan base deemed must-win, and they ended up just fine. With that said, the way this game was playing out, it felt like if Detroit wasn’t going to win this one, it might be a long time before they won another game.
It didn’t start that way. In fact, I would call the first few innings of this game—nothing if not disastrous. Detroit was on its fourth pitcher by the third inning. Some of that was planned, and some was due to bad luck, especially when Ty Madden was hit by a line drive and taken out of the game. No report yet on the extent of his injury, but Detroit knew that they were going to need length from somebody, and Drew Anderson was miraculously able to provide it. His peripherals are actually pretty good. I don’t know what he’s going to end up being, but I do think Detroit’s going to rely on him a lot more as we get deeper into this season.
I want to address one thing I didn’t mention in the video. Detroit made no errors tonight. Would I say that they did anything dazzling or spectacular? No, but this is not a spectacular defensive team. I don’t think anybody out there is expecting extraordinary. The fan base wants competency in this team; despite all their injuries and shortcomings, they would be in a completely different place if they just played cleaner baseball. This is a group that is 5–19 in games in which they’ve made at least one error. That means that with tonight, they’re now 15-6 in games where they don’t make mistakes. Despite how depleted they’ve been, this is still a group that can be almost anyone on nights where they don’t beat themselves.
Detroit will look to build off of this and start a winning streak tomorrow. Casey Mize will return from the IL and pitch for the Tigers. It looks like it’s going to be a bullpen day for the Blue Jays. Lefty Mason Fluharty will be getting the start. Expect A.J. to load up the top of the lineup with righties and then adjust accordingly.