Thirteen losses in sixteen games
August began well for Detroit. Four straight wins from July 31, a 40-7 aggregate scoreline across that stretch, two shutouts inside it. The run became a 9-3 spell and carried the Tigers to within a game of .500 by mid-month.
Then the arithmetic turned. Detroit have dropped 13 of their last 16, and an 11-1 defeat to Minnesota on Monday left them at 63-74. The bats have gone quiet with it: one run or fewer in four of the past five games, the exception a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday that says more about the pitching than the lineup.
“We have to execute better on the mound, and obviously we need to handle the ball better,” manager A.J. Hinch said afterwards. “Tonight was a really bad night. You can pick any aspect; we got outplayed.”
Right fielder Zach McKinstry, who ended up pitching the eighth inning with his side eight runs down, put it another way. “In the past, we’d just kind of grind away. That hasn’t been the case lately.”
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The number that explains the drought
Riley Greene has been out three weeks with a right hamstring strain. Detroit have batted .206 as a team in that window. Greene himself is hitting .273 with an .816 OPS this season, and he is expected to be activated ahead of Tuesday night’s game in Minneapolis.
“Doesn’t suck to have an All-Star back in your lineup, and the energy he brings, and the presence he brings and the stability,” Hinch said, before adding the caveat that matters. “It doesn’t have to just be him. We can pick up the pace in multiple areas of the batting order.”
Troy Melton takes the ball for Detroit. The right-hander carries a 7-3 record and a 1.86 ERA into the start, though his limited work against Minnesota has produced a 5.14 ERA across two appearances, one of them a start.
Minnesota still have a route
The Twins are 66-72 and sit three and a half games behind Cleveland, who are 69-68, for the third and final American League wild card. Three teams are stacked in between. A third straight win keeps that math from closing on them.
Ryan Jeffers supplied the power on Monday with two home runs, the second a three-run shot in the fifth that made it 5-0. “It wasn’t a great August for me,” the catcher said. “We’ve been working through stuff, and I think we found some good momentum.”
Minnesota open with a bullpen game. Andrew Morris, who turns 25 on Tuesday, gets the ball first. The rookie right-hander is 4-7 with a 3.82 ERA and has faced Detroit once, on June 10, when he allowed two runs (one earned) in a single inning.
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