On Monday afternoon, Detroit Tigers rookie Matt Manning made the second-to-last start of his first season in the big leagues. But a 33-pitch fourth inning, marred by mistakes, doomed him.
“Really inconsistent with his delivery,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “His pace was slow. His body wasn’t moving great. It just didn’t look like he could throw the ball where he wanted to. We stretched him as long as we could. It obviously hurt us.”
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The right-hander yielded six runs and recorded one out in the fourth frame. Hinch — who hasn’t been afraid to let his young arms develop through their hardships — trotted to the mound, swiped the ball from Manning and called reliever Bryan Garcia out of the bullpen.
Manning received cheers from a few of the 11,044 fans in the stands as he exited the Tigers’ 8-7 loss against the American League Central-leading White Sox in the final home game at Comerica Park this season.
“We were not very active at all on the bases,” Hinch said. “We had a few opportunities early but nothing to really show. I’m proud of our guys for how we fought back. I don’t like losing, but I do think we made a game of it. For much of the day, it didn’t feel like we were in control of that game.”
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In Monday’s makeup game from a Sept. 22 postponement, the Tigers (75-81) nearly mounted a comeback behind five runs in the eighth inning.
Miguel Cabrera started the rally by doubling for his 2,986th career hit. He needs 14 more hits with six games remaining to reach 3,000, meaning the Tigers will likely wait until the 2022 season to celebrate another milestone. Cabrera, who finished 2-for-4 Monday, is three doubles away from 600, as well. He was pulled for pinch-runner Zack Short, who later popped out to end the eighth. Following Cabrera’s double, Jeimer Candelario (walk) and Isaac Paredes (hit-by-pitch) reached safely to load the bases.
Eric Haase drove home two runs with his single to left field, cutting the Tigers’ deficit to 8-4.
“A couple free passes here and there, a couple base hits, you’re right back in the ballgame,” Haase said. “It can build up quicker than you think. We’ve been on the receiving end of that a couple times, too. We fight until the last out. That was just another example of it today.”
Niko Goodrum tripled to the right-field corner, scoring two more runs. Standing on third base, Willi Castro struck out swinging on three pitches for the first out in the eighth. Still, Jonathan Schoop made sure Goodrum scored — making the score 8-7 — on a sacrifice fly to right field.
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In the ninth inning, Tigers reliever Alex Lange drilled White Sox slugger Jose Abreu on the elbow with a 97 mph fastball. White Sox bench coach Miguel Cairo was ejected, as members of Chicago’s coaching staff barked at Lange and Hinch.
Moments later, Abreu slid recklessly into Goodrum trying to steal on a ball in the dirt.
The dugouts and bullpens emptied onto the field. Although no punches were thrown, the teams had a standoff behind second base.
“They were just mad that Jose got hit,” Hinch said. “Let me just set the record straight: There’s no reason to hit Jose Abreu. He does everything right on the field. He had nothing to do with anything. We had two strikes on him. If you throw the ball out over the plate, he destroys you. So we threw inside. It hit him.”
Despite the conflict, Cairo was the only person tossed from the game.
What happened to Manning?
Everything crumbled for Manning in the fourth.
With one out, Yasmani Grandal pounded a solo home run over the left-center wall. Manning had fallen behind with back-to-back balls, and in a hitter’s count, Grandal slugged his 23rd homer this season on a two-seam fastball to tie the game, 1-1.
The 23-year-old then walked Eloy Jimenez on seven pitches and Yoan Moncada on four pitches. Following a mound visit from pitching coach Chris Fetter, Manning issued another free pass to Andrew Vaughn on nine pitches.
“He might be trying to be a little too perfect,” Hinch said. “He’s going to be a really good strike thrower, so I think this is a little bit of an anomaly. It’s not his norm. We love the days where he’s pounding the strike zone and can go wherever he wants. When he can’t, we got to figure out a solution to get him back on track faster.”
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Cesar Hernandez attacked Manning by driving a first-pitch fastball, which traveled down the heart of the strike zone, to left field. Two runs scored, giving the White Sox a 3-1 advantage.
The next batter, Zack Collins, drilled a two-run single to right.
With Garcia replacing Manning on the mound, Luis Robert put a first-pitch slider into center field for an RBI double to put the White Sox ahead 6-1. Because Garcia inherited Collins on first base, the sixth run was charged to Manning.
In his 17th MLB start, Manning allowed six runs on four hits and five walks, pushing his season-long ERA to 6.16. He struck out three and fired 46 of 82 pitches for strikes — throwing 43 four-seam fastballs (52%), 14% two-seam fastballs (17%), 11 sliders (13%), eight curveballs (10%) and six changeups (7%).
Manning needed 25 pitches in the first inning, 13 in the second, 11 in the third and 33 to get one out in the fourth.
“He was just missing,” Haase said. “He was pretty good for those first three innings, then the solo homer, and I think he might have been trying to nitpick a little bit. … It’s hard. You’re not trying to feed them fastballs right down the middle, but when you’re walking guys, you kind of get backed into that corner.”
Schoop’s HR
The Tigers scored first in the second inning on Akil Baddoo’s RBI single to left field. They waited until the fifth to pick up their second run.
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Facing White Sox starter Dallas Keuchel, Jonathan Schoop took a hack at a 89 mph fastball. His swing resulted in his 21st home run, which traveled 375 feet to left field. (In the first inning, Schoop extended his hitting streak to eight games with a single.)
The solo blast in the fifth was Schoop’s first home run since Sept. 10. Keuchel conceded two runs on seven hits and two walks, striking out two and throwing 52 of 91 pitches for strikes.
Two more for ChiSox
The White Sox seemingly put the game out of reach in the seventh inning, when Jimenez crushed a 432-foot two-run home run to center field. He got ahold of left-handed reliever Ian Krol’s slider to give the White Sox an 8-2 lead.
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After Garcia pitched 1⅔ innings in relief of Manning’s poor start, the Tigers went to Krol for the sixth and seventh innings. Rookie right-hander Jason Foley kept the White Sox scoreless in the eighth, and after the Tigers scored five runs in the eighth, Lange pitched the ninth.
Evan Petzold is a sports reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.