Cleveland — It’s reset time for Tigers’ Nick Maton.
He had a miserable three at-bats Tuesday night against Guardians ace Shane Bieber, who steadfastly refused to throw him a fastball. Maton saw 13 pitches in three at-bats: knuckle curves, cutters, changeups and one slider.
Maton struck out three times — each time leaving runners in scoring position — chasing six pitches out of the strike zone and, salt in the wounds, he was called out on a pitch out of the strike zone in his final at-bat.
The book is out on Maton. Don’t throw him heaters.
“When you look at his at-bats, teams are clearly declaring two things,” manager AJ Hinch said. “One, they’re unafraid to throw him secondary pitches early, often and, last night, entirely secondary pitches. And two, he’s continued to be really aggressive.
“Sometimes I think that cat and mouse game has to be adjusted. You don’t have to swing at every secondary pitch.”
Maton is 3-for-22 in May with nine strikeouts, seeing almost exclusively off-speed pitches and breaking balls. That’s not going to change until these numbers change:
▶ He is 4-for-34 against sliders and curveballs, with 19 strikeouts and a 47% whiff rate.
▶ He is 0-for-12 against changeups, with seven strikeouts and a 59% strikeout rate.
“Some of it is approach, some of it is mechanics,” Hinch said. “I think he’s trying to prove to everybody that he can handle all pitches and sometimes by doing that you end up swinging at too many of them.”
The left-handed hitting Maton was not in the starting lineup Wednesday against Guardians right-hander Peyton Battenfield. Hinch said Maton will be available to pinch-hit. The Tigers are off Thursday and face Mariners left-hander Marco Gonzales on Friday.
So Maton is going to get a few days to clear his head.
“At this level when teams continually do the same things over and over to you, I think it’s human nature to get over aggressive and try to combat that and swing too much,” Hinch said. “Just little adjustments are necessary. He can find his way.
“But when it piles up like this over and over against a team like Cleveland that is pretty bullish with how they pitch, you can see how the results can be frustrating.”
Around the horn
Hinch said he had no update on when right-hander Spencer Turnbull will report to Triple-A Toledo. He was optioned on Sunday.
“We will know more when we get home,” Hinch said. “We will have a good plan in place for him.”
… Maton wasn’t the only Tigers hitter who had trouble with the breaking balls and secondary pitches Bieber was throwing Tuesday night.
He threw 30 of his 35 sliders outside the strike zone, yet the Tigers swung at 19 of them and whiffed on 10. Bieber threw five knuckle-curves, all out of the zone, Tigers whiffed on all five. Helps explain the 1-for-15 performance with runners in scoring position.
… Riley Greene came into the game having hit safely in 12 of his last 13 games, slashing .353/.411/.471 in that stretch with three doubles, a homer and eight RBIs. He also leads the team with five stolen bases.
… Hinch was playing hurt in the ninth inning Wednesday. He took a foul ball between the eyes in the dugout. He was cut and swollen, holding an ice pack to his forehead before his postgame press conference.
“A lesser man wouldn’t have finished the game,” he joked.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky