Houston — The game turned for the Tigers on a misplay in left field in the second inning.
But the primary villain in their 3-2 loss to the Astros at Minute Maid Park Friday night — and the source of lingering frustration — was a scuffling, impotent offense.
“It’s frustrating when you don’t win games,” right fielder Robbie Grossman said. “You show up to the park expecting to win every day and when it doesn’t go your way you have to come together and grind some out.”
Astros right-hander Luis Garcia allowed just one earned run and two hits through seven innings. From the third inning through the seventh, he set down 15 straight, punching out eight of his career-best nine in that run.
“It looked like he made an adjustment during the game,” manager AJ Hinch said. “We got better swings early and not a lot of good swings late. He missed a lot of bats as the game went on, which points to either an adjustment in usage or a better feel for his pitches.
“The results are what they are. He beat us tonight.”
Garcia flummoxed Tigers’ hitters with his cutter, getting 13 whiffs on 17 swings. And a good percentage of those swings and misses were on pitches sweeping out of the strike zone.
“It’s just a good pitch,” Grossman said. “He pitched really well. We got a couple off him but not enough to get the job done.”
The two hits against him were singles, by Javier Báez and Harold Castro.
Castro, who got the start at first base for Spencer Torkelson, singled to lead off the second and ended up scoring on a ground out by Tucker Barnhart. The second run was set up by an error by third baseman Alex Bregman in the third inning.
That was it. Garcia cruised through the seventh and Houston relievers Phil Maton and Rafael Montero got the last six outs. The Tigers lost for the 10th time in 12 games and there is evidence that hitters are starting to press.
“I’m watching the same thing you are,” Hinch said. “We try to tell them not to try to make everything up in one swing, but it’s pretty natural when you are playing just well enough to lose, when you are hitting just enough not to win.
“Guys want to do too much. Everybody wants to be a hero and they want to do more. The work is being put in but the results aren’t showing on the field. I don’t know how else to say it, we just have to keep fighting to do better.”
Báez in the eighth inning took a big hack on a 3-0 pitch and ended up taking a called third strike in the at-bat. Pressing?
“No, I want him to swing 3-0 every single time,” Grossman said. “That’s the only count you might get a fastball in this day and age. I hope he swings 3-0 every time…It’s across the league. It’s hard to hit in this league and they’ve made it harder to hit.”
Grossman was referencing the deader baseballs which, by league design, aren’t flying as far.
“We’re facing good pitching every night,” he said. “It’s something we have to adjust to and continue to be better at.”
The signs seemed off right from the start for the Tigers.
First outfielder Austin Meadows was scratched before the game because of a non-COVID illness. That not only took one of the Tigers’ best left-handed bats out of the lineup against Garcia, it forced Hinch to readjust his outfield alignment, moving Grossman to right field and inserting switch-hitting Willi Castro into left.
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Then rookie right-handed Beau Brieske, in his third big-league start, needed 24 pitches to get through the first inning, largely because Astros hitters fouled off 10 of his pitches. Michael Brantley (eight pitches) and Yordan Alvarez (nine) both worked long at-bats and seemed to be just missing Brieske’s pitches.
Those two factors converged in the second inning. By all rights, Brieske should have been out of the inning in 12 pitches with the Tigers’ 1-0 lead intact. Except Willi Castro misplayed a shallow fly ball in left field off the bat of Jeremy Pena and it fell for a double.
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Castro, who looked shaky catching three other fly balls, broke back hard on contact before hastily reversing course.
“Yeah, my first step was back,” he said. “I thought it was hit farther. I thought it was going to be over my head. That’s my chance, my ball if I would have read it a little better.”
The Astros, as good teams do, exploited the extra out. Chas McCormick shellacked a 95-mph fastball from Brieske and hit it 408 feet into the boxes in left-center. Martin Maldonado followed, hitting another fastball into the seats.
“I didn’t make pitches when I needed to in that second inning,” Brieske said. “That second inning when we score a run, after the blooper fell, I need to get an out and get us out of the inning.
“That’s the separator in outings, between a good outing, a bad outing or an average outing. You have to bounce back from stuff like that. Those are things that happen in baseball. Guy gets a double, but if I get the next out it’s not a big deal.”
Brieske, as he showed in his first two starts, doesn’t stop battling. He allowed only a single and two walks after the second inning, leaving a 3-2 game after five innings.
“I finished stronger than I started and I’m happy with that,” he said. “But I need to be better, still.”
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky