Pitching chaos? No, Detroit Tigers delivering playoff chaos in ALDS
The Detroit Tigers are on the brink of the unthinkable, and no one would blame anyone for pinching themselves as they ask if this is actually happening.
But it is. And until it doesn’t you might as well throw all of your imagination into where this might lead.
Why stop dreaming now?
The Tigers are a game away from the American League Championship Series after beating the Cleveland Guardians, 3-0, on Wednesday in Game 3 of the American League Division Series at Comerica Park.
Once again, the Tigers did it their way:
The starter threw an inning. The reliever threw three. The sometimes closer followed with two – in the middle of the game.
The cleanup hitter, who isn’t always the cleanup hitter, got the key hit his manager predicted he would before the game.
And the reliever who started Game 1 and got knocked around in a loss?
All Tyler Holton did was get the save, striking out Austin Hedges to end the game. Redemption? Nah. These Tigers don’t believe in such things. They believe in faith, and perhaps fate, and can you blame them?
A.J. Hinch the maestro of Tigers' playoff magic
A.J. Hinch never loses faith. Mostly because he is a seeker and is reminding everyone that he’s a baseball savant. Just about everything the Tigers’ manager does these days is paying off.
He warned of pitching “chaos” before the postseason, and he got it – again. He said he’d fill his lineup card based on math and matchups and a touch of instinct, and not worry about anyone getting in their feelings.
Forget about roles and labels, he keeps telling us, these are the playoffs, and these are the Tigers – your Tigers. Who roll out rookies and Triple-A call-ups, afterthoughts in trades and a few veterans, though to call anyone on this club a vet is relative.
The Tigers are young and fearless and growing in self-belief by the day, comfortable with hitting and pitching anywhere, anytime of the game. If the manager thinks the best hitter on the team should be pulled in the bottom of the fifth for a better matchup, then, hey, go get em’ Justyn-Henry Malloy.
You could imagine Kerry Carpenter saying that when Hinch pinch-hit Malloy for him with a runner on first and an out. Because he’s said similar things before when asked about such scenarios.
Here was the Game 2 hero – well, along with pitching ace Tarik Skubal – who'd blasted his way into Detroit sports lore with a go-ahead home run Monday in Cleveland, taking a seat in the dugout Wednesday so the team could play the percentages.
That’s part of the magic, too.
How else to explain what keeps happening?
Grit? Doggedness? Unflappability?
Sure, why not? The traits are there for everyone to see.
But when Cleveland put runners on first and second and the Tigers went to the bullpen for the third time in an inning – Beau Brieske to Sean Guenther to Will Vest – and the No. 2 hitter smashes a rising line drive to third?
Of course, Matt Vierling was going to time his jump perfectly at third base to snag the screamer to end the threat. And of course, Vierling was going to jump again, this time as he ran toward the dugout, and pump his fist, and holler the words the whole city wanted to holler:
“Let’s (expletive) Go!!!”
Tigers delivering a different kind of chaos
You get the idea. And if you’re late to the party, you aren't alone. The brigade grows by the game, one clutch maneuver, one clutch hit, one clutch pitch at a time.
That nominal cleanup hitter?
That would be Riley Greene, he of the liquid swing, a tantalizing talent who’d struggled during the playoffs but who happily talked before the game about the team and his teammates, giving no hint that he felt pressure.
So, when he got to the plate with Parker Meadows at second and the chance to grab a lead in the first inning, the All-Star calmly hit a seeing-eye single up the middle.
Five innings later, his closest clubhouse mate and fellow saver of the franchise, Spencer Torkelson, batted his first run in, too. The maligned first baseman with the weight of draft expectation finally got a hit.
Torkelson, who’d gone 0-fer in the postseason in 12 at-bats, yanked a 92-mph fastball down the line to the left-field wall, driving in Colt Keith. He raised his arm when he reached second. Relief, no doubt. But ask him and he’d tell you he felt more elation.
Keith, by the way, is another unflappable rookie on a team full of them, doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing. Like Keider Montero, who got the start and needed six pitches to get three outs.
And Brant Hurter, who followed Montero and threw 3⅓ innings, who gave way to Brieske, who gave way to Guenther, who gave way to Vest, who gave way to Holton.
Got that?
Good. Because these Tigers seem to get it, and keep giving it, as well.
Pitching chaos?
Sure.
Yet that doesn’t begin to capture what is unfolding with our baseball team at the moment. How about calling it playoff chaos, too?
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.