ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Detroit Tigers were no-hit, for six innings at least, by the Tampa Bay Rays.
Left-hander Jeffrey Springs, who signed a four-year, $31 million contract extension in the offseason, tossed six scoreless innings with one walk and 12 strikeouts. Lefty reliever Colin Poche replaced him for the seventh inning, and Riley Greene immediately broke up the no-hit bid with a leadoff infield single on a grounder to first base.
“I smelled it, and when you smell a hit, you’re going to turn them on,” Greene said. “I was just like, ‘I gotta go.’ It turned out that I was safe.”
Still, the Tigers lost, 5-1, and were swept in the three-game series at Tropicana Field to begin the 2023 season. Off to an 0-3 start, the schedule doesn’t get any easier with the next three games against the Houston Astros — the 2022 World Series champions — at Minute Maid Park.
Catcher Jake Rogers hit the Tigers’ first home run in the ninth inning.
“It’s a bad weekend,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We got to get to a new challenge. We’ll get on a plane to Houston, another really good team. We’ve got to do a lot better in a lot of areas if we want to play competitive.”
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In the seventh, Greene bounced a two-strike slider to first baseman Luke Railey, but Poche was late trying to cover the bag. Greene sprinted to first base and barely beat the Rays’ pitcher, turning a ball in play with a .120 expected chance of a hit into the Tigers’ first base hit.
The Tigers walked once and struck out 14 times in Sunday’s series finale, bringing them to six walks and 30 strikeouts in the first three games. They were outscored 21-3 in the series.
“It just is what it is,” said outfielder Matt Vierling, who went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. “There’s some adjustments we’re making. It’s not the start we wanted to get off to, but it’s better to figure this out now than for something like this to happen later on in the year.”
Can’t touch Springs
The first Tiger reached safely in the second inning when Nick Maton drew a five-pitch walk with two outs. The next 13 batters were retired in a row; Springs retired 18 of 19 batters he faced.
He threw 18 first-pitch strikes.
“They dominated the strike zone as they always do,” Hinch said. “That leads to putting hitters uncomfortably in the box and dictating contact, or for today, it was lack of contact. That’s what he does. He gets to leverage, beats you to two strikes and beats you with two strikes.”
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The Tigers only put six balls in play against Springs.
He struck out Vierling (twice), Greene, Javier Báez, Austin Meadows, Spencer Torkelson, Miguel Cabrera (twice), Jonathan Schoop (twice) and Rogers (twice) by mixing his fastball and changeup.
“He didn’t make a lot of mistakes,” Greene said. “He threw the way he wanted to throw. We got to be better at the plate. We got to do whatever we can to put the ball in play and make something happen.”
Springs, deceptive because of his pitch tunneling, threw 37 fastballs (one ball in play, two whiffs, 14 called strikes) and 28 changeups (three balls in play, nine whiffs, two called strikes). He also mixed in 16 breaking balls.
His fastball averaged 91.9 mph.
“We weren’t covering either pitch, and that’s a bad sign,” Hinch said. “You got to cover one or the other. … He gets you in between and looking soft and has finish fastballs. If you start to swing wildly, he will mix in early count changeups. We didn’t adjust very well.”
Wentz gets going
Left-hander Joey Wentz fell behind in the count to three of the four batters he faced in a scoreless first inning, but after those early struggles throwing strikes, he settled in and pitched into the sixth inning without any run support.
He struck out two batters in the second inning.
Randy Arozarena put the Rays ahead, 1-0, with a solo home run in the fourth inning. The below-the-strike-zone fastball, hit with a 107.2 mph exit velocity, traveled 436 feet to left-center.
“I don’t think I put it in the spot I needed to put it in,” said Wentz, who wanted to throw the fastball down and away to the right-handed hitter. “It was low, and he’s a good hitter, a good player, and he put it out.”
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The outing got away from Wentz with one out in the sixth inning.
Wander Franco smacked a ground-rule double down the right-field line and scored on Isaac Paredes’ ground-ball single for a 2-0 Rays lead. Right-handed reliever Jason Foley replaced Wentz. He hit the first batter he faced, then walked the second batter. After a strikeout, Jose Siri delivered a two-run single, extending the lead to 4-0.
“I need to finish better than that,” Wentz said.
Wentz allowed three runs on four hits and one walk with three strikeouts in 5⅓ innings, throwing 47 of 72 pitches for strikes. His fastball averaged 93.5 mph, and he used all four pitches to generate 11 swings and misses: fastball (two whiffs), cutter (two), changeup (four) and curveball (three).
Foley was charged with one run.
Left-hander Chasen Shreve conceded the Rays’ fifth run in the eighth inning.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.