'We had a rough game': Tigers manage just five hits in 1-0 loss to Rangers
Chris McCosky
Detroit — It’s been nine months since Michael Lorenzen last pitched for the Tigers, but AJ Hinch didn’t forget the scouting report.
“We got our hands full if we don’t control the strike zone,” Hinch said before the game. “He wants to nibble around the zone and get chase and swing and miss.”
Exactly right and the Tigers’ heeded his words. They drew five walks in five innings against their former teammate Monday night. Taking pitches wasn’t the problem. Hitting them was.
The Tigers managed just five hits all night and the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers celebrated Jackie Robinson Day in baseball with a 1-0 win in the first of four at Comerica Park.
"Our approach against Lorenzen was exactly what we talked about and we were pretty disciplined," Hinch said. "The walks don't seem like hits but they are. You advance 90 feet, you build the pitch count up. But what needs to come after the walks is a big hit. And that eluded us."
The Tigers were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position against Lorenzen (0-for-8 in the game). Three times he extricated himself from messy innings with 6-4-3 double-play balls. Mark Canha ended the third with one. After Lorenzen walked the first two hitters in the fourth, Matt Vierling swung at the first pitch and grounded into another.
BOX SCORE: Rangers 1, Tigers 0
"Part of being patient is being ready to hit the pitch you're supposed to hit," Hinch said. "When Vierling gets up there after the two walks and gets a center-cut fastball with a little movement in, if he gets the ball in the air and drives it into a gap, it's a great result because he hunted a pitch.
"But he hit it on the ground and they got the double-play. That's a fraction of a difference."
In the fifth, Gio Urshela and Javier Baez led off with singles and with one out, Riley Greene walked to load the bases. But Lorenzen got Canha to bounce another ball to shortstop Josh Smith who ended the inning and Lorenzen’s night with yet another 6-4-3.
"We had a rough game today," Canha said. "We just didn't get the hits when we needed to. I grounded into two double-plays and I feel bad about that. We just have to be better."
Canha said there was no eagerness or chasing pitches with runners on base. The plate discipline stayed sound.
"It wasn't like we were swinging at bad pitches," he said. "We just didn't hit the ball in the air and that's the name of the game these days. It's early in the season and I have full confidence the next time that situation comes up, I'm going to hit the ball in the air.
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"And I'm going to devote the next week to figuring out how to do that better."
Wasn't it just like the baseball gods to arrange for Lorenzen to make his first start with his new team at one of his old stomping grounds.
"I love Detroit," he said after the game. "I love the city, loved living in Birmingham. Everything about Detroit I really enjoyed. The guys over there are great. I tried not to talk to them at all because I wanted to beat them. I'll catch up with them tomorrow."
Lorenzen, who finished last season with the Phillies, was a free agent this offseason and wasn’t signed until March 22 when the Rangers offered a one-year deal at $4.5 million.
“Michael did a good job diving into our organization,” Hinch said. “I think he liked his time here and I think he got better here. He was our All-Star. His openness to tweak a few things here was a good sign that we were on the right track to continue developing pitchers.
“We were glued to the TV last year when he had his no-hitter going. He was a good teammate. He was just good all around.”
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Tigers starter Reese Olson traded zeroes with Lorenzen for four innings, but in the fifth, the game very nearly got away from him.
He’d been bedeviling the Rangers with changeups and sliders – two pitches out of the same arm slot, with the same velocity that move in different directions at the plate. He’d struck out seven and induced four ground-ball outs through four innings.
But he got in the soup fast in the fifth.
A double down the right-field line by Jonah Heim. A walk to Jared Walsh. A single off first baseman Spencer Torkelson’s glove by Leody Taveras. Bases loaded, no outs. A fielder’s choice ground out by Marcus Semien broke the 0-0 tie and the Rangers still had runners at the corners.
And then Greene bailed him out.
Travis Jankowski hit a fly ball to medium depth left field. Greene measured it, got his full momentum going toward the plate as he caught the ball and fired a 90-mph strike to home plate. Catcher Carson Kelly made came up the line a step so he wouldn’t block the plate and made a nifty tag on Walsh’s hip.
Inning-ending double-play.
"He's got a good arm," Hinch said. "And he didn't try to do too much, threw a nice one-hopper. I thought Carson did a nice job of cutting the angle down and coming to get the ball, reading the right hop and where the runner was."
It was the first runner Greene has thrown out at the plate in his young career.
Olson ended up striking out eight and allowing just the one run in 6.1 innings. He threw first-pitch strikes to 17 of the 25 batters he faced and got 16 misses on 46 swings – 10 on 16 swings at his changeup.
"Reese Olson was awesome," Hinch said. "He was good as he's been so far this year with the spin he created and the changeup. I think he threw really well-timed fastballs and he didn't get sped up when they got a couple of base hits. He controlled damage against a lineup that can do some damage."
But the offense never got started. After Lorenzen, right-hander Jose Leclerc put up zeros in the sixth and seventh innings.
The Tigers threatened in the eighth against right-hander David Robertson. Canha doubled with one out and Torkelson reached on a catcher's interference call. Kerry Carpenter then hit a bullet (99 mph off the bat) up the middle but right at Smith who was positioned at the bag.
That left it up to rookie Wenceel Perez. He fell into an 0-2 hole but fought his way to a full count. Robertson, the veteran, boldly flipped a slow, big-breaking curveball that froze Perez. Called strike three.
Right-hander Kirby Yates finished the Tigers off with a clean ninth inning.
"We had better at-bats, which is hard to say when you get shutout," Hinch said. "But I do think we had better at-bats and gave ourselves better chances. We just didn't get the big hit."
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