Sometimes, numbers don’t tell the full story in baseball.
Such was the case for Detroit Tigers pitcher Tyler Alexander, who was nearly flawless through five innings before leaving a few pitches over the plate in the sixth.
The bullpen couldn’t strand his last runners, and the final box score looked like a mere decent outing.
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Alexander went 5⅓ innings, giving up three earned runs on five hits, to go with four strikeouts, as the Red Sox scored five unanswered runs to beat the Tigers, 5-3.
The loss drops Detroit to 2-3 on the season.
“I threw a lot of pitches down the middle in the sixth,” Alexander said. “If I could go back, I’d try to execute a little better. Threw well before that, felt really good through the first five innings … ahead of most guys.
“It went from being a really good day to being just an all right day.”
Alexander had allowed just two base runners through the first five innings — a soft liner by Rafael Devers and an infield single by Xander Bogaerts in the fifth before getting former Tiger J.D. Martinez to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.
But in the sixth, after giving up a leadoff single to Kevin Plawecki, he caught too much plate with a changeup to Kike Hernandez, who doubled in a run.
Then, a sinker to Rafael Devers turned into an RBI single, and suddenly the Tigers’ lead was cut to 3-2. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch pulled his starter and turned to Jacob Barnes out of the bullpen.
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“It’s unfortunate the way it ended because he was cruising,” Hinch said of Alexander. “He just didn’t execute on a couple pitches … all in all it was very Tyler Alexander-esque where he was pitch-efficient, he worked fast, he threw strikes, generated pretty soft contact; it was a very good outing.”
Barnes got a quick flyout and was one pitch away from getting out of the jam, but then gave up an RBI double to Martinez.
The ball landed within inches of the right field foul line. Detroit challenged, but ultimately there was no angle to overturn it and the game was tied.
“Where we were at in the lineup, we his fastball-cutter combination was going to work pretty good,” Hinch said of using Barnes in that situation. “He was about three inches away from us tipping our cap to him for having an excellent outing … J.D. just kept one fair.”
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Alex Lange struggled in the eighth. He lasted just ⅓ of an inning, giving up two earned runs on one hit, one walk and one hit-batter with a wild-pitch mixed in.
Alexander, in the starting rotation while Michael Pineda works his way through his equivalent of spring training in Triple-A Toledo, was still pleased with his outing.
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“I threw a lot of two-seams, mostly away to righties, threw into Devers really well and then threw a lot of changeups,” Alexander said. “Cutters up and in, fastballs up and in — I have to throw up (in the zone) for 88 (mph) to be effective, so I try to move it all over the place.”
And instead of dwelling on the negative, Alexander is taking all that went well into his next assignment.
“It left a bad taste in my mouth at the end,” Alexander said. “But I threw well for five innings, I liked how I threw, I felt good, so I’ll take that into my next start.