Detroit – There’s no standing eight-count in baseball. You have two choices when you get punched in the face – fall down or stay in the fight.
Rookie right-hander Mason Englert was summoned with two runners on base in the eighth inning Friday night and asked to preserve a 4-1 lead. It was his first appearance since he got beat up in Toronto (five runs, two home runs in two innings).
And he got punch on the jaw, again. His first pitch to right-handed hitting J.D. Davis was a 91-mph four-seam fastball down but in the middle of the plate. Bam. Three-run home run, tie game.
“I felt my heart drop,” Englert said. “Just massive disappointment because we had grinded to be up 4-1 and it’s like, first pitch and it’s all tied up all of a sudden.”
Two choices: Fall down or stay in the fight.
“That’s a moment when I looked around and, like, ‘All Right, there’s nine guys on this field and all those guys on the bench and in the bullpen, they deserve my absolute best here.’ So it was like, do everything I can to keep it 4-4.”
Englert didn’t allow another hit and struck out five, getting the Tigers through the eighth, ninth and 10th innings. And the reward was a walk-off, three-run home run by Nick Maton in the 11th.
“I was sitting in the dugout thinking, gosh dang, I hope we win this game because I feel so bad,” he said.
Those emotions were internal. Englert, who is 23 and barely pitched above High-A before the Tigers took him in the Rule 5 draft last December, stayed stoic after the home run and throughout the rest of the game.
“I felt like crap but I can’t get myself down,” he said. “I have to try to pull for the guys around me. They deserve my all. If I get hit in the mouth, I don’t get to just sit there and pout about it.”
It’s easy to see why Englert has impressed the coaching staff as much with his poise and maturity as he has with his stuff.
“The most impressive thing he did was collect himself at a time when it would be really easy to implode,” manager AJ Hinch said. “He has the built-in excuse as a young kid, never been in the position before, I’m bringing him in the middle of innings.
“And yet he goes out and bridges the game to the point where we could win it.”
Make no mistake, Englert is getting a baptism by fire. The lessons he should be learning at Double-A or Triple-A, he’s learning against the best hitters in the world. Every day, every outing, brings new lessons, requires more adjustments.
He allowed only a solo home run in his first three outings, covering 5.1 innings. He’s given up six in his last two, covering 4.2 innings. He’s allowed four homers in 10 innings. Right-handed hitters have done most of the damage, going 6 for 23 with three of the homers.
“I’ve kind of regathered and studied a little bit,” Englert said. “I watch other pitchers, how other right-handed pitchers get right-handers out.”
He’s locked in, especially, on Blue Jays’ right-hander Kevin Gausman, who he saw up close and personal last week in Toronto.
“My changeup is pretty similar to his splitter, movement-wise,” Englert said. “I watched how he was using it against righties and I started doing that and it’s opened more doors against right-handers.”
In his appearance Friday, he struck out right-handed hitters Darin Ruf and Wilmer Flores with changeups. He got four right-handers out with changeups in his 2.2 innings.
“It used to be that throwing right-on-right changeups was a faux pas,” catcher Jake Rogers said. “But I always thought it was a good pitch, even as a hitter. It looks like a four-same fastball coming out and it drops off the table. And Englert’s changeup is incredible.”
Like Gausman’s splitter, the changeup, when thrown correctly, has late movement, down and in, to right-handers.
“If you throw a good changeup down, it looks like a four-seamer down,” Rogers said. “And most right-handed hitters like to hit that pitch. So you can get them to swing over it (because it’s coming at a lower velocity than they thought) or they rollover and hit ground ball because they’re out in front.”
In other eras of the game, like five years ago, pitchers were discouraged from throwing right-on-right or left-on-left changeups because the typical movement of the pitch brings the ball over the plate. Mistakes don’t get missed.
“I don’t agree that it would be taboo,” Hinch said. “If your changeup is your distant third pitch, it’s probably taboo to throw any third pitch too often. You want to throw the most effective pitches that you have. I’m not say he’s Pedro Martinez, but Pedro Martinez had no problem throwing right-on-right changeups.
“I think it all comes down to your stuff and when you get your outs and how you can set up pitches and how they work off each other.”
Right-hander Trey Wingenter was sitting next to Englert during this discussion Saturday. He knows something about staying in the fight. He came in to save a three-run lead in Toronto last week and didn’t retired a single batter. But he came back on Saturday and pitched a clean inning.
“It never settles,” Wingenter said, meaning that as a pitcher, you never stop making adjustments. “You think you have it dialed in and then you lose the zone.”
Adjust and grow. That’s the game.
“Englert is learning, man,” Hinch said. “We’re two weeks into the season and we forget that he’s had such minimal exposure to upper level competition and professional competition in general. I love that he’s thinking about how to correct a few issues that he’s had.
“But what I don’t want him to do is not throw strikes. He can’t be afraid to throw strikes and he hasn’t been.”
Fear, in the context of a baseball game, seems like it would be a foreign concept to Englert.
Twitter@cmccosky