Tigers can't dig out of early hole, lose series to Athletics

Detroit — Was it disappointing to come home after such an optimistic 5-1 start and lose a series to an Oakland Athletics' team that had just one win coming in? Absolutely. Does it portend anything beyond that for this Tigers' baseball team?

Absolutely not.

"You have to keep an even keel at this point in the year," said Mark Canha after the Tigers were defeated by the A's, 7-1, Sunday in the rubber match of the three-game series at Comerica Park. "Keep having the attitude we've been having, showing up expecting to win. Don't get to high on the highs or too low on the lows.

"Keep your head down and keep pushing forward. We have to do that all year long."

BOX SCORE: Athletics 7, Tigers 1

Having been shut out Saturday and struggling to score runs for most of this young season, the last thing the Tigers needed was to fall into a fast and deep hole.

But fall fast and deep they did. The soon-to-be vagabond A's jumped on Tigers starter Jack Flaherty for five runs in the first two innings.

"If anything, looking at Jack's outing, he wasn't perfect, obviously," manager AJ Hinch said. "But the two-strike pitch that hit (Abraham) Toro (in the second inning) set up one swing that separated the game. Other than that, he was battling. He wasn't sharp, but it was a game of small margins that ended up not going his way."

The A's came in hunting heaters.

Flaherty's first fastball and first pitch of the game was whacked for a single by leadoff hitter Toro. The next one that he threw for a strike, at a below-his-norm 91 mph, was smoked down the left field line for an RBI triple by pesky Zack Gelof. Next one, back up to 95 mph, was hit for an RBI single by JJ Bleday.

That’s how his day started and it didn’t get much better. In the second inning with two outs, he hit Toro with an 0-2 fastball. Then he got two quick strikes on Gelof, who in the A’s win Saturday walked three times and scored three times. The 0-2 pitch was, you guessed it, another fastball, this one 94 mph and well above the strike zone.

Didn’t matter, Gelof launched it 402 feet to left field — three-run homer. Gelof ended up with four hits Sunday, a double shy of a cycle.

"Gelof put some good nice at-bats together today," said Flaherty, who gutted out six innings and ended up allowing six runs and nine hits. "Tip your cap to him. But my job is to continue to make pitches until AJ says that's it."

Flaherty, who thought his stuff was better than the results would indicate, certainly wanted that 0-2 pitch that hit Toro back.

"I had him 0-2 and I had Gelof 0-2," he said. "It's not like everything went way downhill after that. Whether I made a different pitch there or whatnot, I was still one pitch from getting out of it."

About the pitch Gelof hit, Flaherty said, "It was three balls above the zone. He put a good swing on a ball that I put high like I wanted to. I probably could have put it a little more outside but, tip your cap to him."

Regardless, the early damage ended up being fatal.

"It's always frustrating when you don't win a series when you are in a position to do it," Hinch said. "They swung the bat a lot better than we did. We couldn't get our A-swing off very easily. Their starting pitcher threw more balls than strikes. He sprayed it just enough to be effective."

After being shut out Saturday, the Tigers didn't put a marker on the board until the eighth inning Sunday. That came courtesy of Riley Greene's third homer of the season. He ambushed a first-pitch curveball from lefty reliever Kyle Muller and hit it over the wall in right-center.

That ended a run of 16 empty innings, despite an erratic performance by A’s starter Joe Boyle.

In his five innings, the hard-throwing right-hander threw more balls than strikes (44-43) and just 39% of his pitches landed in the strike zone. But the Tigers weren’t able to take advantage of it, even with three walks and hit-batsman.

"He had a big lead and we were playing from behind and that changes the dynamic a little bit," Canha said. "But give him credit. He didn't throw too many cookies. He was kind of effectively wild."

The Tigers had a chance to answer back in the first inning.

Boyle walked Parker Meadows. He went 3-1 on Greene before Greene lashed a single to right. He then went 3-1 on Spencer Torkelson. Torkelson ended up flying out to center, which advanced Meadows to third with one out. But Kerry Carpenter, swinging at the first pitch, fouled out to third and Colt Keith grounded out to end the threat.

"If you can answer there, the momentum of the game is a lot different," Hinch said. "He was spraying the ball, the velo is really tough for us and we just didn't get a hit at the time we really needed it. But it's a fine line between being disciplined and being ready for the middle-middle miss.

"We didn't do either."

The Tigers start a short two-game series in Pittsburgh against the 8-2 Pirates.

chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com

@cmccosky