Baltimore – Tigers manager AJ Hinch didn’t mince his words after his team’s 5-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on a cold, wet Saturday night at Camden Yards.
“I didn’t think we were very good offensively,” he said. “We couldn’t do a ton. … Not a good night for us offensively. When you look back on it, just a disappointing night.”
The Tigers continue to fight for some equilibrium in this young baseball season, following up a five-game winning streak with a three-game skid. And they put very little offensive resistance in this one to against veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson, who tied a career-high with 11 strikeouts, and a pair of relievers.
Two hits were all the Tigers mustered, with a season-high 15 punch-outs.
“You have to dig in and make contact in the at-bat and compete,” Hinch said. “Our guys looked a little in-between in both (game) plan and stuff – that’s a bad place to be.”
The game boiled down to two big innings – one wasted by the Tigers and one cashed by the Orioles.
The Tigers chance came in the first inning. Gibson was spraying pitches. He gave up a single to Javier Báez, extending his hitting streak to eight games, and then walked Riley Greene and Carpenter to load the bases with one out.
Gibson fell behind Spencer Torkelson 2-0 before striking him out. He fell behind Zach McKinstry 3-0 and McKinstry hit a bullet right at right fielder Anthony Santander.
“He didn’t really miss over the plate,” Torkelson said. “I bet if you go back you can count on one hand how many mistakes he threw. You tip your cap to that. He kept it out of the middle of the plate, kept it away and he definitely kept us off balance.
“But that hurt not getting him there.”
Gibson didn’t give up another hit until his last pitch of the outing. With one out in the seventh inning, Zach McKinstry blasted an 0-2 sinker 410 feet into the seats in right-center.
In between, though, Gibson dispatched 11 straight and 18 of 19 hitters, allowing only a walk to Akil Baddoo. Mixing sinkers, sweepers and change-ups, Gibson induced 18 swinging strikes (on 34 swings) and 25 called strikes.
“I don’t know if it impacted momentum as much as it’s just a missed opportunity,” Hinch said of the first inning. “We had a chance to get out quick and put a run on the board, if not more, and we couldn’t scratch it across.
“It probably picked up in their dugout a little bit when we didn’t score. And almost the exact same situation happened later in the game and they broke the game open against Joey.”
Tigers starter lefty Joey Wentz looked sharp early, cruising through the first two innings in 25 pitches and three strikeouts. But he needed 30 pitches to get through the third and fatal damage was inflicted, most of it with two outs.
“Overall, my stuff was pretty good, but I kind of failed to make a big pitch,” he said.
Gunnar Henderson led off with a single. Wentz then balked – he lost his footing and didn’t complete his delivery – and threw a wild pitch.
But with two outs and Henderson still at third, Wentz made a very good pitch to Adley Rutschman. He jammed him and broke his bat. Rutschman, though, was able to muscle it into shallow left field to score the first run of the game.
“That’s just part of baseball,” Wentz said. “There are other times when they smoke a ball and we catch it. It goes both ways. I’m more disappointed in the couple of hitters after that.”
BOX SCORE: Orioles 5, Tigers 1
Ryan Mountcastle slapped a two-strike single and Wentz walked Anthony Santader to load the bases. Third baseman Ramon Urias unloaded them lining a double off the wall in right field.
“I thought Joey’s stuff was OK,” Hinch said. “I don’t think he had his complete arsenal. But there was a lot on his fastball (93-96 mph) and he threw some good change-ups. But they wore him down and the Rutschman at-bat was really big.”
Former Tiger James McCann finished the scoring against Wentz, blasting a solo home into the bullpen in left-center in the fourth inning.
“It doesn’t look good the way it ended,” Hinch said. “But Joey will see them again in five days (at Comerica Park). That was one of the reasons I didn’t let him go through the middle of the order again.”
The Tigers, who are 1-10 against teams from the American League East, managed just one run and five hits on Friday night in a 2-1 loss. Orioles pitchers, like they did Saturday, were working Tigers’ hitters on the outside edge of the plate. Where Gibson was mixing sweepers away and sinkers in, Tyler Wells on Friday was throwing change-ups away off of four-seam fastballs and sliders.
“I don’t think we have to change our plan,” Torkelson said. “We just have to be ready for the mistakes and trust that the mistakes are going to come. And when they do, we’re going to hammer it.”
Right-hander Will Vest, just recalled from Triple-A Toledo to replace the injured Trey Wingenter (shoulder tendinitis), made an impressive season debut. He retired all six hitters he faced, with four strikeouts. With a 95-mph four-seamer, slider and change-up, Vest got five swinging strikes and six called strikes in 25 total pitches.
“Trey let us know yesterday that (the shoulder) was starting to be more troublesome,” Hinch said. “We just can’t have guys that aren’t available, especially when we have a capable arm like Will. … He got here about 30 minutes before the game and gave us two impressive innings.”
McKinstry was the first to enjoy the Tigers’ new dugout home run celebration. It was the brainchild of Torkelson. He brought a Detroit Red Wings helmet and gloves and a hockey stick into the dugout.
McKinstry put on the bucket as he walked through the high-five line and then pantomimed a slap shot – an homage to Hockeytown.
“I just felt like we were the only team in the league without (a home run celebration),” Torkelson said. “I said, ‘Let’s think of something.’”
McKinstry, though, forgot to put on the CCM gloves.
“Yeah, we’re need more people to help out with it,” Torkelson said. “We got the helmet on him and the stick.”
Twitter.com: @cmccosky
Twitter.com: @cmccosky