The Tigers’ middle game in Seattle had the feel of a grudge match long before the late fireworks arrived. There were hit batters, a pair of ejections, and then a big swing that briefly put Detroit back in the fight before the Mariners finished off a 4-2 win.
Drew Anderson was back in the starting role for Detroit, though the Tigers were clearly treating this as another step in a longer stretch-out rather than a full starter’s workload. Anderson has already worn a lot of hats this season after starting games in South Korea last year, and now he’s been moved into the rotation with the idea that his pitch counts will build gradually. He didn’t need to go deep in this one.
Bryan Woo, meanwhile, was doing Bryan Woo things at home. His split numbers are outrageous: a 2.20 ERA in Seattle compared to 6.71 on the road.
Hitters have been managing just a .167 average and .463 OPS against him at home, but they’re up to .300 and .819 away from it. That’s the kind of edge Detroit had to solve if it wanted to make noise.
For much of the night, the Tigers couldn’t.
The first real Detroit threat came in the third when Max Clark was hit by an inside sinker to open the inning. He moved to second on a groundout, but Kevin McGonigle flew out to left and the chance disappeared.
Seattle answered in the bottom half with back-to-back singles to start the inning, but Anderson steadied himself, got a flyout, then induced a ground-ball double play. It was the second straight inning that ended on a double-play grounder, and after three frames he had worked only 33 pitches.
Detroit finally started to threaten in the fourth. Gleyber Torres opened with a single to right and tried to take third on a Dillon Dingler single to left.
He slid in feet-first and beat the throw, but his momentum carried him off the bag and he was tagged out. Riley Greene was hit next, putting two aboard for Colt Keith, whose deep drive looked like a three-run homer until Randy Arozarena climbed the wall and brought it back.
Spencer Torkelson followed by striking out, and the inning ended with Detroit still stuck.
Anderson’s night ended in the bottom of the fourth after a two-out infield single. Tyler Holton came in to face Josh Naylor and handled him with a popout to short.
Anderson’s final line: 3 2/3 innings, 3 hits, no runs, 1 walk, no strikeouts, 28 of 42 pitches for strikes. The Tigers had planned for about 45 pitches, so he landed right in the neighborhood.
Woo kept rolling. He hit Zack McKinstry with a pitch in the fifth, confirmed on review, but McGonigle fouled out to end the inning.
In the sixth, with Dingler aboard and two outs, Keith smoked another ball at 108 mph - and again found a glove, this time in right field. Detroit was still scoreless.
Holton kept the game quiet through six, retiring all six hitters he faced before giving way to Brenan Hanifee. That’s when Seattle broke through.
Arozarena doubled, an intentional walk followed, and Julio Rodríguez unloaded a three-run homer to open the game up. Drew Sommers took over and limited the damage by striking out Naylor, but the Mariners had the lead and the momentum.
Woo was finished after seven shutout innings, allowing just three singles. In that park, against that kind of pitcher, that was exactly the sort of night Seattle was hoping for.
The tension only escalated from there. Enmanuel De Jesus came on in the seventh and immediately hit Cal Raleigh in the stomach, clearly unintentionally but still enough to get the home dugout fired up. By then, the hit-by-pitch count was tilted heavily toward Seattle: three Tigers batters had been hit to one Mariner.
That set the stage for the eighth. With two outs and the first two hitters of the inning being rookies, Gabe Speier came inside hard to Torres on the first pitch, then hit him on the second. Benches emptied, bullpens emptied, everyone came spilling onto the field, and both Speier and Seattle manager Dan Wilson were ejected.
Eduard Bazardo entered after Speier’s ejection and immediately had to deal with Dingler, who made Seattle pay with a long two-run homer that pulled Detroit within 3-2.
But the comeback didn’t last long. De Jesus stayed in for the bottom of the eighth and gave up a leadoff solo homer to Colt Emerson, pushing the Mariners back up to 4-2.
Andrés Muñoz shut the door in the ninth with a pair of strikeouts and a groundout.
Final score: Mariners 4, Tigers 2
Colt Keith has been on a strong post-All-Star Game run, coming into the night with 48 plate appearances and a .442 average, plus four doubles, two triples, and a 1.107 OPS. He was also the definition of unlucky in this one, and his BABip sits at a wild .500, well above the usual .290 range.
A certain ex-Tigers right-handed pitcher gave up eight runs in 3 1/3 innings for the Padres tonight.
On this day in 1888, Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim in southwestern Germany, about 100 km (60 mi) away, in the first long-distance automobile trip. She brought her two teenage sons along, and they spent the whole ride telling her to change the radio station, despite radio not having been invented yet.
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