Evan PetzoldDetroit Free Press
The Detroit Tigers' struggles on offense continue.
They've scored six runs in the last six games.
It's that bad.
"If we had a snap answer we would answer it and just score," manager A.J. Hinch said. "It's not that easy. I think big at-bats have not gone in our favor. We haven't been able to find the outfield grass, whether it's pitch selection, whether it's contact, whether it's finding a way to muscle a ball to the outfield. It's the competition, and we're losing it right now."
The Tigers were shut down by the Chicago White Sox — the worst team in baseball — in Saturday's 5-1 loss at Comerica Park.
The series is split, so the Tigers need to beat the White Sox in Sunday's finale to win their first series since beating the Texas Rangers twice in three days June 3-5. (The White Sox haven't won a series since taking two of three from the Washington Nationals on May 14-15.)
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In their past six games, the Tigers (35-41) have scored one run (Sunday), one run (Monday), one run (Tuesday), zero runs (Wednesday), two runs (Friday) and, finally, one run on Saturday. The Tigers won one of those six games, a 2-1 victory (thanks to a second-inning, two-run home run) over the White Sox in Friday's opener of the three-game series.
Here's an ugly fact: The Tigers have scored two runs or fewer in 27 of their 76 games this season — 35.5% of games.
"It's everybody individual," Hinch said. "We talk every day, so this is not something that we try to hide or something we don't talk about or deal with. We can go beat them down, and then they'll feel sh*tty coming to the ballpark tomorrow, so that's not a great recipe either, so you've got to handle it each guy.
"When you think about hitting in general, even when we score runs, somebody had a bad day. We need to reverse. We got to have somebody have a really good day in order to pick a team up with a big swing or a big hit or a bases-clearing double. But you can't just snap your fingers and do it. It's about getting a good pitch to hit, and I know it's repetitive, but I say it, that's the ultimate goal."
This time, the lack of run scoring occurred against White Sox rookie right-hander Drew Thorpe, a 23-year-old involved in the blockbuster Juan Soto and Dylan Cease trades during the offseson. Thorpe went from the New York Yankees to the San Diego Padres in December, then from the Padres to the White Sox in March.
It was Thorpe's third start of his MLB career after the White Sox promoted him from Double-A Birmingham.
"We were going to be on his fastball, and we knew that he was going to go to some offspeed," said leadoff hitter Matt Vierling, who finished 1-for-5 with two strikeouts. "We didn't know if it would be his slider or his changeup, but as the game wore on, he definitely started liking his changeup more, and we had trouble adjusting to that."
The former second-round pick, drafted out of Cal Poly in 2022, leaned on his changeup and fastball against the Tigers, tossing six scoreless innings on two hits and four walks with five strikeouts, while throwing 94 pitches. He generated 11 whiffs on 30 swings, with 10 of those whiffs from his changeup.
"It looked exactly like his fastball coming out of the hand," Vierling said of Thorpe's changeup. "And he was keeping it low in the zone. That was the biggest thing. For the most part, he was keeping it pretty low in the zone and causing guys to maybe hit it on the ground."
The Tigers had runners in scoring position in the first and fourth innings against Thorpe.
The missed opportunities were virtually identical.
In the first, Riley Greene hit a two-out double and Mark Canha drew a walk, but Gio Urshela flew out to end the inning. In the fourth, Wenceel Pérez hit a two-out double and Justyn-Henry Malloy drew a walk, but Jake Rogers popped out to end the inning.
In the sixth, Greene worked a leadoff walk, but Canha grounded into a double play for the first two outs, then Urshela grounded out to end the inning.
Thorpe improved his ERA from 8.64 to 5.02.
"We had a really hard time hitting it or getting it off the ground," Hinch said of Thorpe's changeup. "We knew. He sells it. We know it's part of his arsenal. There's no secrets up here. And it still looked like we couldn't eliminate it. Your choice is to eliminate it and then get on a heater, or you have to sit soft and try to direct the ball to the middle of the field. We didn't do either."
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The Tigers finished with five hits and six walks Saturday, with two hits — Vierling's single and Colt Keith's double —delivering their lone run in the eighth inning, off right-handed reliever John Brebbia to avoid a shutout.
For the lone run, Vierling scored from third base on Canha's groundout to the left side of the infield, trimming the deficit to 5-1.
Meanwhile, the White Sox posted 12 hits despite zero walks.
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A better Kenta Maeda
Right-hander Kenta Maeda, who owns a 6.00 ERA in 13 starts, allowed three runs on eight hits and zero walks with five strikeouts across 4⅔ innings, throwing 92 pitches.
"I feel like all my pitches are coming off better," Maeda said in Japanese, through interpreter Daichi Sekizaki. "I'm successfully fine-tuning them. I was able to make good execution on my sliders. Unfortunately, the results said otherwise, but if I could put up more zeros, that would definitely give me more confidence."
The 36-year-old commanded his secondary pitches better than he has all season and didn't allow the White Sox to score until a two-run fourth inning.
But those two runs in the fourth were enough for the White Sox.
After a Luis Robert Jr. double, the White Sox delivered three consecutive two-out hits —Paul DeJong's RBI single, Korey Lee's single and Nicky Lopez's RBI double —to take a 2-0 lead.
Another run was charged to Maeda's tab in the fifth inning because he allowed singles to Andrew Benintendi (with one out) and Gavin Sheets (with two outs) before being replaced by right-handed reliever Will Vest for a matchup with Andrew Vaughn.
Vaughn singled to left field off Vest's fastball for a 3-0 advantage.
Maeda generated 12 whiffs on 52 swings — a 23.1% whiff rate — with five splitters, four sliders, one fastball, one sweeper and one sinker. His fastball has ticked up in velocity over his past few starts, averaging 91.2 mph against the White Sox.
"He threw a few more better fastballs when you could clearly see they were sitting soft," Hinch said. "The split was effective. The slider was effective. Sequencing is so important for him and execution has to go with it."
Joey Wentz rocked
The White Sox took a 5-0 lead with a two-run sixth inning against left-handed reliever Joey Wentz.
Lee hit a 410-foot solo home run to left field off Wentz's middle-middle cutter, winning a 10-pitch battle; Lenyn Sosa hit Wentz's two-strike curveball into center field for an RBI single, winning a seven-pitch matchup.
Wentz owns a 5.81 ERA in 22 relief appearances.
Right-handed reliever Mason Englert took over for Wentz with two outs in the sixth inning. He struck out Robert with a down-and-away changeup to strand a runner at second base. Englert also covered the seventh and eighth innings without allowing a run.
Contact Evan Petzold atepetzold@freepress.comor follow him@EvanPetzold.
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