Tigers take advantage of big blunder for a win on Skubal Day

The Tigers had Monday off to catch up on their errands, and on Tuesday night they opened up a six-game home stand and a three-game series against the Don’t-Call-Them-Sacramento Athletics. Their opponents made a giant mistake which ended up being the difference in a 6-2 win.

Tarik Skubal made his twelfth start of the year. He’s been good since returning from the Injured List, but very uncharacteristically he’s given up quite a few more home runs. Heck, on June 24 at home against the Yankees, he gave up a trio of taters in a losing effort. His previous start, also against the Yankees but in New York, was more in line with what we’re expecting from him: six innings, one hit, one earned run, nine strikeouts. Who would show up tonight?

Facing the Tigers for the A’s was JT Ginn, whose name I like a lot. (His “JT” and mine stand for different things; his stands for “John Thomas” which, if you know your Cockney rhyming slang, is pretty funny.) The right-hander’s left-right splits for batters has been vast: lefties are hitting .251 with a .740 OPS, righties are .169/.520. That’s why AJ Hinch stacked his lineup with lefties…

…and it paid off in the bottom of the first: Kevin McGonigle walked and Colt Keith followed with a long home run to right for a 2-0 lead.

The A’s got a pair of runners into scoring position in the top of the second with two outs, but Skubal got out of trouble with a top-rail strikeout of Max Muncy (the young one, not the older one with the Dodgers; there are two).

The very speedy Henry Bolte — not known for his home-run power, but see above regarding Skubal — hit a solo home run in the third to narrow the gap to 2-1. Apparently he has the highest sprint speed in Major League Baseball.

In the top of the fourth the A’s got two on with two out again with a single and a walk, but a soft line drive was easily handled by Zach McKinstry for the third out. By the end of four innings, some long at-bats had driven up Skubal’s pitch count to a not-so-svelte 78. His night would indeed be done after five innings and 96 pitches, and the only quibble I’d have with it is that it was short: 5 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 9 K.

After four innings the A’s made a pitching change, going with lefty Jacob Lopez to face the lefty-heavy top of the order in the bottom of the fifth. Lopez is usually a starter, so perhaps the A’s were looking for some length from him. He was just called up from Triple-A Las Vegas today, presumably and particularly to face a bunch of Tigers lefties.

Kyle Finnegan took over from Skubal in the sixth, and he gave up a two-out single to rookie Joshua Kuroda-Grauer, his third hit of the night. Kuroda-Grauer thought he’d try for his first stolen base in the bigs, but he ended up getting picked off first by Finnegan to end the inning.

The Tigers would add four surprising runs with two outs in the bottom of the sixth: Zach McKinstry walked and Spencer Torkelson followed with a single, putting runners at the corners. Ben Malgeri pinch-hit for James Outman; he swung on the first pitch and popped it up high behind first base, and some major A’s miscommunication resulted in the pop-up dropping, McKinstry scoring, Torkelson standing on third and Malgeri perched on second with a so-called “double.” As Malgeri’s first major league double, we’ll take it, but that may be reversed by the scorekeepers.

Matt Vierling followed with a two-run double to the right-field corner for a 5-1 lead. McGonigle followed with a single to centre to plate Vierling, pushing the score to 6-1. What a costly miscue that was!

Drew Anderson took over in the seventh and he hit Bolte with one out, and Bolte wasn’t exactly getting out of the way of it; let’s face it, he was taking a page out of Coach Ernie Pantusso’s book on that one. After a strikeout and an error at second base, a single scored the speedy Bolte to make it 6-2. Anderson plunked Jonah Heim to load the bases; he went 3-0 on Jacob Wilson, and the Tigers looked to be in big trouble. What did Anderson do? Perfect fastball on the outside corner, foul ball for strike two, rung him up looking on the corner because, of course, we just can’t do things the easy way, can we?

Jacob Waguespack came in for the eighth, and every time I recap a game with him in it, it takes me about three attempts to spell his name correctly. Three was also the number of batters he faced, retiring all of ‘em. In the bottom of the inning the Tigers got two runners on with one out, but a pair of strikeouts prevented any more runs from being scored.

Waguespack carried on into the ninth and he had no trouble dispatching the A’s there either, as the Tigers coasted to the victory.

Final score: Tigers 6, A’s 2

Little League Home Run Alert

Usually it’s the Mets making this happen, but sometimes the tables get turned.

Notes and Nibbles

• In case you missed it, the Tigers parted ways with third-base and infield coach Joey Cora. I know some people don’t like his windmilling ways, but let’s also not forget how good the Tigers have been on the basepaths for the past few years: constantly taking extra bases, to the tune of several extra runs per year over the average.
• Don’t look now, but with the victory tonight, the Tigers are 4.5 games out of a Wild Card spot. Wild, indeed!
• Despite being very fast, Henry Bolte’s last name is not said the same as Usain Bolt’s. If we were being fancy, we would add an accent: Bolté.
• Did you see the game Ryan O’Hearn had for the Pirates tonight? Grand slam, three-run home run, three-run home run; he added a single in the eighth for good measure. Ten RBI is a Pirates record, and that franchise has been around quite a while.
• Happy 98th birthday to sliced bread! The first pre-sliced bread was sold on this day in 1928 in Ohio. A lot of people out there are saying it’s the greatest thing since… something.