ST. LOUIS — Alex Lange always wanted to pitch in big moments.
Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman — some of the best relievers to ever pitch in close games in the ninth inning — inspired him throughout his youth and into adulthood.
Those four relievers have combined for nearly 2,000 saves.
Lange has six saves for the Detroit Tigers this season.
“It’s awesome,” Lange said Friday night after shutting the door on the St. Louis Cardinals for a 5-4 comeback win. “It’s something I dreamed of as a kid. I’ve studied closers. I’ve studied relievers. It’s something I’ve always been super interested in. It’s a fun part of the game. Everything is on the line. The fans are into it. You saw it there in that last at-bat. It matters to people, it matters to me, and it matters to the guys in this locker room.”
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Lange, a turtleneck-wearing de-facto closer, has a 1.15 ERA with six walks and 21 strikeouts across 15⅔ innings in 16 outings, with six saves in seven opportunities. He blew his first save chance and has been perfect since then.
The 27-year-old just pitched three straight days, earning three saves: against the New York Mets at Comerica Park (two saves) and against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium (one save). Lange likes to stare down his final batter after finishing games. He acts like a closer, talks like a closer and produces like a closer.
Can we call Lange the closer?
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch smiled.
“Nope,” he said.
Hinch doesn’t want to be married to specific innings for every reliever, and by naming a closer, he could fall into that trap. He likes the flexibility to bring in the best pitcher in the most important situation, even if that’s the seventh or eighth inning. It took him a full season to name Gregory Soto the closer, so the same could be true for Lange.
The Tigers traded Soto, a two-time All-Star, to the Philadelphia Phillies in the offseason for Matt Vierling, Nick Maton and Donny Sands.
Title or not, Lange has been serving as the Tigers’ closer this season.
“He’s a special mindset,” Hinch said Thursday morning. “When we first got on the radar (in 2021), it was all about pitch usage and strikes with him. What it has evolved to is early count strikes and then late count chase. But he has a mentality that is perfect for the back end of the bullpen. He has an intensity to him.”
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On Friday night, Lange allowed a leadoff double to Paul Goldschmidt — a seven-time All-Star and the reigning National League MVP — on a down-and-in curveball in the bottom of the ninth inning.
“I hung the shit out of the breaking ball,” Lange said. “A really good hitter put a good swing on the breaking ball. Give it up, no runs, still got a one-run lead, still got three outs to get. Shake it off and keep attacking.”
He struck out Willson Contreras looking in a 2-2 count with a seventh-pitch 96.6 mph sinker painted down and away.
He struck out Nolan Arenado swinging in a 2-2 count with a seventh-pitch 87.6 mph curveball in the dirt.
And he struck out Dylan Carlson, a left-handed hitter, swinging on a 1-2 count with an 87 mph curveball below the strike zone.
Game over.
“I trust Alex to throw his best stuff to their best hitters,” Hinch said Friday night. “That middle of the order is real. You just got to collect yourself and deal with the next hitter. You can’t really let your mind drift to anything. He threw his best stuff to those guys.”
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Lange, who has a 0.65 ERA over his past 30 outings, is a three-pitch reliever with his curveball, sinker and changeup. He has abandoned the four-seam fastball, which he rarely used last season, while continuing to throw 95 mph sinkers.
The pitch mix is unorthodox but successful.
He throws his curveball 57% of the time, for a 47.3% swing-and-miss rate. He throws his sinker 34% of the time. He throws his changeup 7.5% of the time, primarily to left-handed hitters, with a 66.7% whiff rate.
“Keeping him a three-pitch pitcher has been a big deal,” Hinch said. “It’s so easy for him to rely solely on the breaking ball. I know he throws the breaking ball 50% of the time, but the changeup factors in and the fastball factors in. Making sure that he’s the best version of himself doesn’t mean being like everyone else. It doesn’t mean he has to be the elevated fastball four-seamer because his sinker is super nasty. It doesn’t mean he has to throw behind-in-the-count fastballs because his command of the secondary (pitches) is arguably better than the command of the fastball.”
A total of 124 relievers, including Lange, pitched at least 90 innings between the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Lange ranked 94th with a 10.9% walk rate and 40th with a 27.9% strikeout rate. The pitch characteristics were always elite, but the Tigers needed him to get ahead in counts.
Opponents hit .128 against Lange in two-strike counts.
In 2023, Lange has an improved 9.8% walk rate and 34.4% strikeout rate. His whiff rate, at 39.6%, ranks in the 97th percentile. His first-pitch strike rate has dropped from 54.8% in 2022 to 51.7% in 2023, an area to monitor as the season continues.
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But Lange, first-pitch strikes or not, is getting the job done in the ninth inning, and Friday’s win extended the Tigers’ winning streak to four games.
Lange postgame stood in front of a Bally Sports camera outside the visitor’s dugout at Busch Stadium. He adjusted his cap and belt, caught a banana from fellow reliever Tyler Alexander and then answered a question about his nerves following Goldschmidt’s leadoff double.
Lange seemed relaxed.
“Chill and make pitches,” he said.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.