Tigers ride pitching chaos, Torkelson's blast to series win over Rangers
The Tigers dusted off the pitching chaos strategy that helped them storm into the postseason two years ago and executed it to near perfection.
Detroit — It felt like 2024 again. It was Casey Mize’s start day, but with him on the injured list with a groin strain, the Tigers dusted off the pitching chaos strategy that helped them storm into the postseason two years ago. It’s not always popular with the fan base and it may have lost some of its luster last season, but it was executed to near perfection Sunday as the Tigers beat the Texas Rangers, 7-1, in front of 24,083 at Comerica Park in the rubber match of the three-game series.
BOX SCORE: Tigers 7, Rangers 1 Manager AJ Hinch deployed six different relievers to cover the nine innings. And as the game played out, the method to his strategic madness started to unfold. He targeted the Rangers’ two most-productive left-handed hitters — leadoff hitter Brandon Nimmo and No.
3 hitter Corey Seager — hoping to match them up with left-handed pitchers as many times through the order as he could. And that’s what happened. Nimmo and Seager faced lefties their first three times through — Tyler Holton in the first inning and Brant Hurter the next two times.
They were a combined 1-for-6 in those at-bats. In between, the Rangers’ best right-handed hitters — Josh Jung, Jake Burger and Ezequiel Duran — got righties Brenan Hanifee and Ricky Vanasco. It wasn’t perfect.