The Royals shelled Casey Mize right from the start of this one, and even their routine contact dropped over a long first three innings. The Tigers didn’t get a whole lot from the offense beyond Colt Keith and Matt Vierling, and they dropped the game and the series on Tuesday night in Kansas City.
Casey Mize got the start for the Tigers, and he was not good. The Royals were all over his slider, which remains the real weak link in the chain for the right-hander considering how often he uses it, but they hit his splitter and his fastball too. Maikel Garcia got a nice flat slab of slider brisket down in the zone 1-1 and opened the bottom of the first with a triple to the wall in left. Bobby Witt Jr. singled sharply off Mize’s glove and it was 1-0.
Witt stole second base and moved to third on a Vinnie Pasquantino fly out, scoring on a Salvador Perez single. 2-0. Mize got out of the inning by punching out Michael Massey on a good splitter, and then after a Colt Keith throwing error allowed Adam Frazier to reach, struck out MJ Melendez on a fastball up in the zone.
The Tigers went in order in the second as well, with a lineout to center from Matt Vierling the only hard hit ball so far.
Mize got the first out of the inning, but Kyle Isbel and Maikel Garcia followed with solid singles and Witt got a splitter that hung at his knees and crushed it a mile into the fountains in left center field. 5-0. Pasquantino followed with a double, moved to third on another Sal Perez single, and scored on a Massey sacrifice fly to make it 6-0. Great work.
Frazier followed with a single, and that was it for Mize. Tyler Holton took over to get the final out of the inning. The Tigers got a walk and a pair of hard hit outs from Torkeson and Riley Greene, but nothing to show for them in the third.
Holton walked Hunter Renfroe to open the bottom of the third. He struck out Isbel, but a well located changeup was read well by Maikel Garcia and he smoked his second triple of the game to center field. 7-0. A Witt sacrifice fly made it 8-0 before Holton got out of the inning.
The Tigers made a little push to get back into the game in the fourth. Mark Canha drew a walk from Alec Marsh and Wenceel Pérez laced a single into right field. Kerry Carpenter popped out, but Vierling again roasted a low drive to center field, and this time Isbel got a bad read on it and couldn’t recover. Canha and Pérez scored as Vierling cruised into third with a triple. Colt Keith ripped a one-hopper up the middle for a single, and it was 8-3 Royals. That was all they’d get as Torkelson flew out and Michael Massey made a nice diving stop on a Zach McKinstry ground ball that got to the grass and threw him out to end the half inning.
Finally, the Tigers managed a clean inning as Holton spun a quick fourth inning, but the Tigers didn’t nothing to build any momentum as they went 1-2-3 in top of the fifth. Holton gave up an infield single but no more in the bottom half. An hour and 20 minutes in and it was the sixth inning already. Time was rapidly running out to get back into the game, and Marsh was only at 78 pitches.
A pair of two outs single from Vierling and Keith gave them a chance to get back into the game, but Maikel Garcia speared a hot one-hopper off the bat of Torkelson and threw him out to the end the inning. That felt like last chance in this one.
Jason Foley hasn’t thrown in several days, so Hinch wanted to get him an inning of work to stay sharp. However, he had to get Witt to open the bottom half and instead the young superstar shortstop crushed a sinker down on the inner half of the zone and belted it over the wall in center field to make it 9-0. And that was that. Foley did not look good the rest of the inning either, but fortunately three hard hit balls found their way into outfielders gloves or it could’ve been worse.
Lefty Angel Zerpa took over from Marsh in the seventh. Andy Ibáñez pinch-hit for McKinstry but flew out to right to open the inning. Carson Kelly also flew out to right field, and a recently scuffling Riley Greene bounced one back to Zerpa for the final out.
Joey Wentz took over in the bottom of the seventh and wasn’t much better than last night. He allowed a one-out solo shot from Renfroe that make it 10-3, though he did strike out Melendez and Isbel along the way.
Lefty Sam Long took over in the top of the eighth and quickly went through Canha, Pérez, and Carpenter. Wentz came back out and spun a clean inning in the eighth, and it was last call.
Seven run, ninth inning comebacks have happened before, but hopefully most of you were well on into the rest of your evening. It would not happen tonight, to your shock and amazement.
Nick Anderson took over for the Royals and retired Vierling on a foul ball down the right field line. Colt Keith, continuing to just rake like mad over the past week, sprayed an opposite field double to left, and Spencer Torkelson drew a walk. That left it to Andy Ibáñez, who took a tough called third strike on a curveball up and away. Carson Kelly
The great southpaw matchup of our time will go down tomorrow as Tarik Skubal and Cole Ragans battle it out with the Tigers trying to avoid their second sweep in May.