After suffering one of the most heartbreaking defeats of the season on Friday night, the Tigers got up off the mat and went to work. The eked out a 2-1 victory over the Athletics on Saturday afternoon in Oakland and then walloped the A’s 9-1 on Sunday to take the series and keep their playoff hopes alive.
Trey Sweeney Leads the Way
The Tigers entered Sunday’s contest in a bit of a rut offensively, having scored just 23 runs in total over their last seven games – and four of them came in extra innings during Friday’s heartbreaking defeat.
Offense wasn’t the problem on Sunday though, they had plenty of it. Rookie shortstop Trey Sweeney got the party started in the third inning, crushing a 404-foot solo homer off of J.T. Ginn that landed on the staircase in right field to give the Tigers an early 1-0 lead. After an RBI knock from Kerry Carpenter in the third made it a 2-0 ballgame, Sweeney added on in the fourth with an RBI double that plated Spencer Torkelson.
The game remained close at 3-1 heading to the top half of the eighth inning when the Tigers decided to bust it open. Parker Meadows continued his recent hot-hitting with a two-run double that extended their advantage to 5-1. Matt Vierling followed with an RBI double and Riley Greene added an RBI single to make it 7-1. They weren’t finished though. Carpenter smacked an RBI double and then scored on an RBI single off the bat of Colt Keith to make it a 9-1 ballgame.
Sweeney was definitely the hero offensively, going 4-for-4 with a homer, stolen base, two runs scored, and two RBI. He’s now slashing .236/.276/.436 with three long balls, nine RBI and a pair of stolen bases in his first 58 big-league plate appearances.
Ty Madden Earns First Victory
It wasn’t just the offense that put in work on Sunday afternoon though, the Tigers’ pitching staff came to play as well. Beau Brieske issued a pair of walks in his inning of work to start the game, but he also recorded a pair of strikeouts and got out of it unscathed. Rookie right-hander Ty Madden then took over in a bulk relief role and delivered the finest performance of his young big-league career. The 24-year-old hurler scattered five hits over five innings of one-run baseball. He issued just one base on balls and racked up a career-high seven strikeouts on the afternoon.
Madden threw 58 of his 83 pitches for strikes in the contest. He generated 14 swings and misses – six of those on his splitter – while registering a strong CSW (called strikes + whiffs) of 33 percent. Through his first three outings with the Tigers, the former first-round pick now sports a stellar 2.57 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, and a 10/4 K/BB ratio across 14 innings. Tyler Holton took over after him and needed just six pitches to work a scoreless seventh inning. After the Tigers took the large lead, they turned to Kenta Maeda to get the final six outs.
News and Notes
With the victory, the Tigers move back to two games over the .500 mark at 73-71. With the Twins losing once again to the Angels on Monday, they are now just three games out of the final Wild Card spot in the American League. The Tigers open a huge three-game set with the Rockies at Comerica Park on Tuesday night. It’ll be Keider Montero toeing the slab for the Tigers in that one against Rockies’ rookie right-hander Bradley Blalock.
Casey Mize will follow him on Wednesday with Tarik Skubal working the final game of the series on Thursday. The Tigers promoted top pitching prospect Jackson Jobe from Double-A Erie to Triple-A Toledo. He’s expected to remain there for the remainder of the season, but if the Tigers are in playoff position during the final week of the season, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get a start with the big-league club.
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