Detroit — To Riley Greene’s credit, he did not pull a Juan Gonzalez, a Victor Martinez or a Nick Castellanos. He was actually diplomatic about the spacious dimensions of Comerica Park even after it essentially robbed him of a go-ahead, two-run homer in the eighth inning Wednesday.
“It’s a game of inches,” he said, after his 424-foot blast landed in centerfielder Chas McCormick’s glove at the wall in center field in a game the Tigers’ lost 2-1 to the Houston Astros. “I should’ve hit it harder. It just comes down to that.”
Many before him have damned Comerica “National” Park — “Horse(bleep) ballpark” being the most popular refrain. But Greene has also used all that space to his advantage this year, running down fly balls and stealing hits from opposing hitters.
“It’s just the park we play at,” he said. “I got a 3-0 green light — one pitch, one spot and he threw it there. I hit it good. We go someplace else and maybe it’s a homer. But this is our park — sometimes it goes and sometimes it doesn’t.”
According to Statcast, Greene’s drive would have left 28 other big-league ballparks.
“Look, we play 81 games here,” manager AJ Hinch said. “It’s the same every day. We can complain about it. We can pout about it and wonder what if. But it’s our park. We need to play the dimensions.”
The 93-win Astros leave Detroit with a sweep and leave the Tigers, who were officially eliminated from the postseason Tuesday night, a season-worst 35 games under .500 (54-89). And this one followed an all-too-familiar script. The offense was again overmatched by a dominant right-handed pitcher who can spin a baseball.
.Right-hander Cristian Javier stuffed the Tigers on two hits over six innings, striking out eight.
“You do get caught in between with his surprise fastball and sweep slider,” Hinch said. He’s a punch-out pitcher and does it by throwing a lot of strikes and getting into leverage.”
The Tigers lone run came in the seventh on Javier Báez’s 13th home run. After two dreadful at-bats against Javier, Báez blasted a hanging 2-0 slider from right-handed reliever Bryan Abreu 406 feet into the seats beyond the visitor’s bullpen.
“I liked the controlled swing,” Hinch said. “He hates this, but when he dials it back just a tick it’s an entirely different hitter. He gives himself a chance to stay on the ball and get it up in the air.”
Javier, who is maybe the fourth pitcher in a healthy Astros’ rotation, came in with a 32.5% strikeout rate and a 41% swing-and-miss rate with his slider. He tormented the Tigers with it, even when he wasn’t throwing it.
Five of his eight strikeouts were called third strikes, all with fastballs. The Tigers seemed so conscious of the slider, which breaks off the plate, they were locked up on fastballs on either edge of the plate.
Báez took a fastball for a called third strike in the second inning. In the fourth, he swung at four sliders all well outside the strike zone, not wanting to get caught looking at another fastball.
The Tigers took 11 fastballs for strikes and swung and missed eight times on 13 swings at Javier’s slider. And for good measure, Javier mixed in 15 knuckle curves, getting three whiffs and four called strikes.
“He kept us off-balance,” catcher Eric Haase said. “There’s a huge gap between his slider (79 mph) and his heater (93) and there’s just enough on the heater to keep you off it. He spins it well and he was on today. I thought we battled but he just didn’t give us a lot to hit.”
Rookies Kerry Carpenter and Greene got the lone hits off him. Greene extending his on-base streak to 20 games.
Rookie left-hander Joey Wentz, coming off his first big-league win, was pulled after walking the leadoff batter in the fifth inning. He was at a most uneconomical 91 pitches. Still, there was a lot to like about his outing.
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The Astros stacked their lineup with eight right-handed hitters and Wentz was able to keep them off-balance with cutters that were moving in and changeups moving away, spotting four-seam fastballs up and curveballs that broke down.
The Astros put 11 balls in play with an average exit velocity of 88.5 mph. The only hit that did damage was a cutter that was down and out of the zone in the fourth inning that left-handed hitting Kyle Tucker golfed over the wall in right field — his 27th home run.
“I can live with the solo homer,” Wentz said. “I wish I wouldn’t have walked the guy to start the fifth, he came around to score. But all in all I thought I battled OK and made good pitches when I needed to.”
The Astros made him work. They fouled off 27 pitches, 18 of them fastballs. He needed 28 pitches to get out of the first inning. In his last at-bat of the day, No. 9 hitter David Hensley fouled off three pitches before Wentz walked him.
He would score on a long sacrifice fly by Alex Bregman.
“They’re a really good team and they make you work for your outs,” Hinch said. “They have a plan and they stick with it. They rarely go outside of it and chase. They make you earn it. But I thought for the first time seeing that lineup, Joey did a nice job.”
Those two runs were all the Astros got. Relievers Will Vest, Jason Foley, Joe Jimenez, Jose Cisnero and Gregory Soto pitched five scoreless innings, allowing just one hit (off Soto).
Those two runs were also all the Astros needed.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky