Detroit — Sometimes you’re simply damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The Tigers found themselves between that particular rock and hard place in the ninth inning Monday.
They rallied for three runs to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth and immediately in the top of the ninth, the Cubs forced an almost no-win predicament for manager AJ Hinch and the Tigers’ defense.
Yan Gomes led off the ninth with an ambush double off reliever Beau Brieske. The Cubs sent speedy Miles Mastrobuoni to pinch-run with Nick Madrigal, a throw-back batsman, coming to the plate. By batsman, we mean he puts the ball in play (8.7% strikeout rate) and he is a proficient bunter.
Hinch decided to move third baseman Matt Vierling in, even with the bag. He pulled Spencer Torkelson in at first base, too. Priority one, protect against the bunt. Madrigal took the first pitch and didn’t show bunt, but the defenders stayed in.
He bounced the next pitch just inside the bag and past Vierling for a go-ahead double.
“You have to defend both,” Hinch said. “That’s the beauty and curse of having somebody who can handle the bat. He’s bunted with runners at first and third. He’s bunted with runners at second and with runners at first. Madrigal can do a lot of things.
“They let him swing away, maybe because we defended it the way we did.”
Earlier in the season, the Tigers played the same situation the opposite way. They played back at the corners and they very nearly played the sacrifice bunt into an infield hit. It’s almost a no-win decision.
“It’s a competive choice,” Hinch said. “It’s like (in football), against an eight-man front, do you run or pass? Everybody has a decision to make in every sport. There was a lot of different ways for them to play that. They chose the seeing-eye double.”
Hard-luck night
As much as the baseball gods may have smiled on Madrigal in the ninth, they were raining on former Tiger Michael Fulmer in the bottom of the eighth. The three runs went on his ledger, even though two scored on a double by Javier Báez, on a pitch that completely shattered his bat. The third run scored when Zach McKinstry’s bloop behind second fell between three defenders.
“It’s been like that all year,” Fulmer shrugged before the game Tuesday. “It’s all right, though. We got the win.”
Fulmer is in a good spot with the Cubs, a team in the thick of the playoff hunt. Results aside, he stuff was nasty — fastball hitting 98 mph and the sweeper that’s holding hitters to a .191 average with a 47% whiff rate. He’s overall whiff rate, 33%, ranks in the top 10 percentile in baseball.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “The way we’ve been playing since the second half, it’s been a lot of winning. There’s a bunch of good guys in here that all they care about is winning. It makes it fun, for sure.”
Fulmer, who played for the Tigers from 2016 to 2022, still has his house in Birmingham. His wife Kelsey and children Miles (4 years old) and Sadie (2) stayed back in Oklahoma for this trip.
“It’s always good to be able to make that drive in from Birmingham,” he said. “Better than a 35-minute bus ride.”
Told that we’d see him in the playoffs, Fulmer smiled and said, “We’re trying.”
Around the horn
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke to players in both clubhouses before the game Tuesday. “He’s been doing that for a couple of years, circling through the league and talking to players and coaches,” Hinch said. “Just making sure we are all on the same page with the game.”
…Torkelson is one of the hottest hitters in baseball. He posted his second four-game this month on Monday. One of those hits was his 23rd home run. Over his 12 games he’s hit eight home runs and is slashing a gaudy .395/.490/1.047. His hit 15 homers since June 27 is second most in the American League.
… Kerry Carpenter entered play Tuesday having homered in three straight games. He has 19 on the year. He reached base in 18 straight games, slashing .394/.444/.818 with eight homers and 13 RBIs in that span.
Cubs at Tigers
▶ First pitch: 1:10 p.m. Wednesday, Comerica Park, Detroit
▶ TV/radio: Bally Sports Detroit/97.1 FM
Scouting report
▶ RHP Jameson Taillon (7-8, 5.56), Cubs: Minus an 8-run blowup in Toronto two weeks ago, he’s allowed three runs or less (2.30 ERA) in his last eight starts, including eight innings of one-hit, shutout work at Yankee Stadium. He’s added a sweeper to his four-seam (93-94 mph), cutter, curveball, sinker mix that has been troublesome for right-handed hitters. Lefties do most of the damage against him, .526 slug, .891 OPS.
▶ LHP Tarik Skubal (3-2, 3.76), Tigers: He spun a gem in Cleveland his last time out, allowing a run and three hits over six innings. The Guardians stacked their lineup with right-handed hitters and Skubal responded by throwing a season-high 27 changeups to effectively neutralize those hitters. His four-seam and two-seam heaters were lively, too, hitting 99 (four-seam) and sitting at 96 with both.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter/X: @cmccosky