Seattle – Spencer Torkelson walked through the clubhouse Tuesday morning carrying a well-worn bat. He was heading toward the batting cage. This was hours before the Tigers would get fail to take advantage of a catcher pitching in the 10th inning and get walked off by the Mariners 7-6 in the first game of a doubleheader at T-Mobile Park.
“Is that the one with all the hits in it?” he was jokingly asked.
“Yep, this is the one,” he said.
How about that, he was right. Torkelson was in a 1-for-31 skid when he came to bat in the fourth inning with a man on and two out. In his first at-bat, he’d ripped a ball with an exit velocity of 105 mph right at shortstop J.P. Crawford.
This time he got a hanging cutter from Mariners right-handed starter Chris Flexen and he put some air under it. The ball left his bat at 110.6 mph and flew 426 feet over the out-of-town scoreboard in left-center field to tie the game at 3-3.
Torkelson singled ahead of Victor Reyes’ 401-foot home run in the seventh that put the Tigers up 5-3. It was his third home run of the season and his second in three games. He doubled and scored the first run of the day on a double by Riley Greene.
But that was the end of the happy part of this story for the Tigers.
The Mariners tied it in the bottom of the seventh, taking advantage of a rare off night by reliever Alex Lange. He hadn’t been scored on in his last 13 outings covering 11.1 innings. But it was quickly evident he didn’t have a feel for his breaking ball.
That said, if Torkelson made a play at first base he might’ve escaped the inning. With a runner on second and two out, right-handed hitter Ty France hit a squibber (90 mph off the bat) that went right through Torkelson and was scored a single, scoring one run.
Lange walked Mitch Haniger and gave up a two-strike single to former Tiger Eugenio Suarez.
By the time the Tigers came up in the 10th, the Mariners, with another nine innings to cover in a bullpen game, were out of pitchers. They called on catcher Luis Torrens, who pitched once earlier this season.
“We don’t see that too often,” Tigers’ starter Eduardo Rodriguez said afterwards.
Torrens, throwing fastballs between 84 and 89 mph, gave up a run on a sacrifice fly by Greene. Which turned out to be insufficient. The Tigers managed only an infield hit off Torrens.
The Mariners countered with two runs off Gregory Soto in the bottom of the 10th to win it. Jarred Kelenic singled home the tying run and Abraham Toro’s sacrifice fly won it.
It was the Tigers’ third loss in the last 13 games. But back to Torkelson.
His dinger was the rookie’s seventh of the year and his first in 75 plate appearances. It was also the hardest ball he’s hit since April.
“We still believe in him,” manager AJ Hinch said before the game. “He’s going to be a really good player, but this has been a tough year for him.”
The No. 1 overall pick in the draft in 2020, Torkelson came into the game hitting .195 with a 24.6% strikeout rate. He had an average exit velocity of 90.5 mph, but he’s struggled to get the ball aloft. He had a 41% ground ball rate and a 25% fly ball rate
Not conducive to producing big power numbers.
Hinch, who is planning to use the rest of the month conducting exit interviews with each player, said this is going to be a critical offseason for Torkelson.
“I don’t think it’s time to be delicate,” he said. “I think he’s had a large enough sample size to have to address some things in order to be a better player. We still want to instill confidence in him. But I think we need to go in the front door, not try to go in the side door, and let him know where he needs to be to be productive at this level.”
It was the 17th and final start of the season for lefty Eduardo Rodriguez. It was about 15 starts fewer than the Tigers had in mind when they signed him for five years and $77 million. They couldn’t have imagined he would spend three months on the restricted list sorting out marital issues.
Still, he finished the year strong, posting his fourth straight quality start in this one. The three runs he allowed in six innings came off two home run balls in the third inning – a solo blast by catcher Curt Casali and a two-run shot by Haniger.
“I feel good I was able to end the season the way that I wanted,” Rodriguez said. “And I feel good the way we are ending the season as a team. We ended the season the right way, winning a lot of games. We can take that experience, especially with the young guys that we have. I feel like you learn more from bad things than you do good things.
“I know they learned a lot from all that happened this year and I know we are going to be a better team next year because of it.”
Rodriguez was 2-0 in his last four starts, allowing eight runs in 25 innings and 20 strikeouts.
cmccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky