The Tigers had a forgettable evening in Cleveland — except for Alex Lange, who won’t forget Saturday’s 11-3 loss for the rest of his life.
“It’s something you dream about from the time you pick up a plastic bat in the backyard as a kid, playing in the big leagues,” Lange said before the game, looking forward to his Major League debut. “Every day, every workout, every lesson, every 6 a.m. [call]. It’s just incredible.”
On a night that became a learning experience for Tarik Skubal, who allowed three home runs and six runs over four innings in his ninth Major League start, Lange rode the adrenaline of The Show to plow through the middle of Cleveland’s lineup in the fifth inning. His final pitch was a filthy breaking ball with a 44-inch vertical drop to fan Tiger-killer Franmil Reyes for Lange’s first Major League strikeout.
Lange will have trying nights like Skubal did, but he had the best inning of any Tigers pitcher Saturday. That’s good news for the hyper-competitive, enthusiastic Lange, but also very good news for Detroit.
For all the well-deserved attention on top pitching prospects Skubal, Casey Mize and Matt Manning, the Tigers also need some of their lesser-known pitchers in the farm system to pan out to build a more complete staff. The need is accentuated in the bullpen, where Detroit struggled to develop young arms until the last few years and still looks to develop a pipeline of power arms. That also means getting marked improvement out of pitchers from the time they enter the organization, which is why Detroit hired former University of Southern California head coach Dan Hubbs as director of pitching development and former University of Michigan pitching coach Chris Fetter as pitching coach.
Lange was known in college ball for an incredible early career at Louisiana State University, but he had a relatively mundane beginning to his pro career in the Cubs’ farm system after Chicago drafted him in the first round of the 2017 Draft. Tigers general manager Al Avila and LSU head coach Paul Mainieri have been friends for three decades since Avila was Mainieri’s assistant coach at St. Thomas University in Miami, and after a consult, Avila brought in Lange as part of the Nick Castellanos trade two years ago.
Lange had a good stretch run out of the bullpen at Double-A Erie two years ago, but last summer was when he really grabbed attention. His fastball bumped up to 97 mph, and his breaking pitches had more bite, a different look from his days as a starter in the Cubs’ system. He used the offseason after his 2019 campaign and baseball’s shutdown last spring and summer to work out, go to Driveline and change his game.
“I feel like I’m a completely different pitcher than I was in my last outing in ‘19,” Lange said. “I came into Spring Training in ‘20, kind of got to battle-test some things, then really took in after the shutdown in March, really understood what I had to do to get to the next level. If I wanted to be where I wanted to be, I had to make some changes. I had to look in the mirror.”
That difference was evident Saturday. Lange’s first big league pitch was a 97.1 mph fastball to American League Most Valuable Player Award runner-up José Ramírez, just missing at the knees but setting up back-to-back swings and misses on sliders. When Lange went back to the fastball and induced a Ramírez grounder to first, the hurler bolted to the bag so quickly that he nearly overran Miguel Cabrera’s throw. Another barrage of sliders set up a high fastball to Eddie Rosario for another groundout. Aside from a fastball up and out of the zone, Lange threw all breaking balls to Reyes, getting him to chase a full-count offering in the dirt.
It meant little in Saturday’s outcome, but it means plenty for the Tigers’ future.
Lange got a taste of the big leagues Friday when he did pregame work with the team at Progressive Field as a member of the taxi squad. He watched Friday’s loss from the hotel, but he got a call from pitching coach Chris Fetter after the game that he was getting called up to replace injured Julio Teheran.
It might not be a cameo appearance.
“He can pitch his way into any number of roles on our team,” manager A.J. Hinch said.