Detroit — Tyler Holton had just plopped himself in front of his locker with a carton of muscle milk, still in full glisten and winding down from his pregame workout. Seemed a good time to hit him with a goofy question.
So, should we start a Tyler Holton Rookie of the Year campaign?
“It seems pretty unlikely,” he said with that wry smile of his.
How about maybe just get you into the conversation a little bit?
“That’d be cool, I guess,” he said. “It is what it is. I can’t control that.”
No, and besides, Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson is several lengths ahead in that race.
But don’t sleep on Holton’s credentials. Going into the game Friday, he led all qualified rookie pitchers in ERA (1.62), WHIP (0.82) and opponent batting average (.165).
He took a scoreless innings streak of 12⅓ into the game, allowing one hit with 13 strikeouts and two walks over that stretch. Going back 30 outings, back to June 4, he’s allowed four earned runs in 38⅓ innings with 42 punch-outs and 10 walks, holding hitters to a .155 average and almost no power (.217 slugging percentage).
It’s been incredible.
“I will leave the rookie of the year stuff to the voters,” manager AJ Hinch said. “But I will say this, as far as our guys who have come up, it’s hard to argue that he’s not been the most impactful first-year guy on our team. And that’s a guy who didn’t break with us out of spring training and didn’t really have a defined role.
“And he’s been able to work his way into a ton of games in a variety of roles and answered every challenge.”
He’s gone from pitching in low-leverage bridge innings as the third lefty in the bullpen to one of Hinch’s most trusted late-inning options.
“I don’t want to put the ultimate jinx on him; there’s still a lot of games left,” Hinch said. “But I trust him with the ball. I trust him against any hitter in any lineup at any point in the game. That’s probably the best compliment you can give a reliever.”
Not bad for a guy who was unceremoniously lopped off the Diamondbacks’ roster late in spring to accommodate the signing of former Tigers lefty Andrew Chafin. Tigers president Scott Harris snapped him up immediately.
It’s been one of the most pleasant surprises of the season for the Tigers, if not completely surprising to Holton himself.
“In a way, I’ve surprised myself,” he said. “But I feel like if you are competitor of any sort, you go out there and if you have success, is that surprising? I feel like when you have success, it’s more a sense of, like, you did your job. You are supposed to go out and help your team win.”
Once you start down the rabbit hole of Holton’s accomplishments to this point, it’s hard to stop. His wOBA (weighted on-base average), .214, ranks in the top 1 percentile of baseball. The hard-hit rate against him (29.7%) ranks in the top 5 percentile. The average exit velocity of balls put in play against him (85.9%) ranks in the top 6 percentile.
He throws six pitches and opponents are hitting under .200 on five of them, under .150 on three of them, and over .250 on none of them.
“When you look at it as a whole, I guess that’s what dictates good years, average years and bad years,” Holton said. “But I don’t look at it from that zoomed-out perspective because every day you play a game. Whatever you did good yesterday or bad yesterday, you have to flush it and do what you can today.
“I hope I can continue strong these last five or six weeks. Once the offseason is here, then I’ll look back and do the reflection thing. But I’m not even close to doing that now.”
New Tigers catcher Carson Kelly was with Holton in Arizona. He figured there was at least one pitcher here he didn’t have to learn from scratch. Wrong.
“Yeah, so, Carson came in and he was like, ‘So, same thing?’” Holton said. “And I was like, ‘No, not really.’”
The Holton Kelly might’ve remembered threw fastballs and changeups and struggled more against left-handed hitters than right-handed hitters. The development of his slider has changed his game considerably. Lefties are hitting .124 against him this season.
Right-handed hitters are still going to see a lot of his four-seam fastball (.180 opponent average and no extra-base hits) and changeup (.145, 35.6% whiff rate) with some cutters mixed in (.244). Lefties are getting the four-seamer, some two-seamers (.143) and they are getting the demon slider (.094, 43.9% whiff rate).
“Just working with the pitching staff here and my catchers has helped me develop my arsenal,” Holton said. “That’s helped me tremendously compared to last year. I am not the same type of pitcher I was last year.”
That’s true in every way — stuff, presence, confidence.
“The biggest difference is my confidence level,” Holton said. “I was trying to pitch in the big leagues last year. Once I did and had some success, then you start to realize you can pitch in the big leagues. Having the confidence that I belong up here and that I can compete and have success — that mindset change was huge.”
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter/X: @cmccosky