UPDATE: The Tigers’ game Monday night against the Guardians has been postponed due to inclement weather and rescheduled as part of a straight doubleheader beginning at 1:10 p.m. Tuesday.
Detroit Tigers (5-9) vs. Cleveland Guardians (9-7)
When: 1:10 p.m. Tuesday, straight doubleheader (two nine-inning games).
Where: Comerica Park in Detroit.
TV: Bally Sports Detroit.
Radio: WXYT-FM (97.1; Tigers radio affiliates).
Starting pitchers: Game 1 — Tigers LHP Matthew Boyd (0-1, 4.00 ERA) vs. Guardians RHP Hunter Gaddis (0-1, 8.53); Game 2 — Tigers LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (0-2, 4.50) vs. Guardians RHP Peyton Battenfield (0-0, 1.93).
Tigers lineup: TBA.
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Game notes: We’re not saying Hunter Gaddis’ 2023 season so far is a game of “Two Truths and a Lie,” but we’re not not saying it, either. The hulking Georgia native — listed at 6 feet 6 and 260 pounds, so say nice things — has made three starts this season. Against the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees (on March 31 and April 11, respectively), Gaddis was lit up for 12 earned runs in 6⅔ innings, with 13 hits allowed, three walks and seven strikeouts. In between, against the Oakland Athletics on April 5, Gaddis was nearly unhittable, allowing just one hit and two walks, with four strikeouts over six innings. Perhaps he’ll duplicate that against the Tigers, whose offense (despite back-to-back games scoring seven runs against the Giants) is a lot closer to that of the A’s than either the M’s or the Yanks. But considering his 4.01 ERA in 24 appearances in Double- and Triple-A last season, the Tigers can perhaps hold off their “tip the cap” routine for at least another night.
Gaddis has relied heavily on his four-seam fastball (38.8% of the time) and his cutter (35.5%), with his changeup and curveball combined accounting for just 25.7% of his pitches this season. He flipped the script slightly in his most successful outing, against the A’s, however: Of his 77 pitches, Gaddis used the cutter 30 times (38.9%), with an average speed of 85.7 mph, and the four-seamer just 25 times (32.4%), with an average speed of 93.6 mph.
The bad news for the Tigers: They’re one of the worst teams in MLB at hitting the four-seamer, with a .217 batting average on the pitch that’s better than just three teams and 57 points off the league average of .274. There’s good news, too, though: They’re much, much better against the cutter, with an average of .281 that was 12th-best in MLB, 20 points higher than the league average entering Sunday.
The Tigers’ series will continue against the Guardians on Tuesday night, with lefty Eduardo Rodriguez set to face Cleveland’s Peyton Battenfield, who was called up to fill in for injured righty Aaron Civale, in Game 2. The teams wrap up the three-game series — weather permitting, of course — at 1:10 p.m. Wednesday.
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