Detroit - Baseball always gives you another shot, and for the Tigers, that was about the only comfort on Wednesday night at Comerica Park.
They came in with a chance to push themselves back toward .500 for the first time since early May, but instead dropped a 6-4 decision to Cleveland in a game that looked a lot like Tuesday’s series opener. AJ Hinch put it plainly afterward: “I mean, the goal is to win the game,” Hinch said afterward, “and we came up short.”
The night already had a rough edge before the first pitch. Riley Greene went on the 10-day injured list with a hamstring issue, and Framber Valdez got the Tigers into trouble right away, opening the game with a bases-loaded jam and a 2-0 deficit in the first inning.
Still, Hinch saw enough from his club to keep the door cracked open.
“We did put up a pretty good effort,” Hinch added, “and we leaned on them quite a bit.”
The biggest reason for that optimism came from a 21-year-old who is still getting his feet under him in the majors. Max Clark’s 12-pitch battle with Cleveland closer Cade Smith in the eighth inning didn’t change the final score, but it may have changed Thursday.
Clark stepped in with two outs and runners at the corners in a 6-3 game, facing one of the most difficult at-bats a young hitter can draw. Smith’s fastball can get above 100 mph, and his extension makes the ball feel like it’s on top of hitters before they can fully load up. Clark’s answer was simple and a little fearless.
“So my approach was almost to swing when it leaves his hand,” Clark said later, smiling.
That’s easier said than done against Smith, especially with the splitter in the mix.
“If you over-swing, you're going to punch,” Hinch said. “If you get too far out in front of yourself because of emotions, you're going to chase.”
Clark didn’t chase. He fouled off Smith’s first pitch, a 99.6-mph fastball, then took a called strike on the outside corner and quickly fell behind 0-2.
From there, he started grinding. He fouled off seven of the next nine pitches, laid off two balls, and watched a splitter get away for a wild pitch that allowed Kevin McGonigle to score from third.
“Yeah, he battled battled his butt off up there,” said McGonigle, who'd had a similar at-bat against Smith earlier this season.
The sequence finally ended when Austin Hedges secured a foul tip on a 101-mph heater. By then, Smith had thrown 38 pitches, four more than his previous MLB career high.
Hinch liked almost everything about the at-bat.
“I mean, there's just a lot to like in that at-bat,” Hinch said of Clark's effort. “And I love his awareness of the big moment and overcoming the instinct to, you know, try to end it. … It's nice to see him control himself in that moment, right?”
That grind gave Detroit at least a chance in the ninth. Javier Báez and Gleyber Torres singled to bring Dillon Dingler up with a shot to tie the game or even win it, but Smith struck him out looking. McGonigle then grounded out to end it.
Even in defeat, Clark’s work may have mattered beyond Wednesday. Smith’s pitch count likely makes him unavailable Thursday, which gives the Tigers a small opening in the series finale.
Clark wasn’t hiding his frustration after the game.
“I need to find a way to get that runner home,” he said. “But we'll get him again.
And my takeaway from it is he's probably not going to pitch tomorrow, which is big. So, yeah, I was pretty pissed coming out of that.
But afterward, you know that you set it up for tomorrow.”
For a Tigers team trying to claw its way back into something better, that’s the kind of fight that still counts.
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