The Detroit Tigers’ bullpen, which has been nearly flawless through the first three weeks of the season, has finally blown a lead.
The Tampa Bay Rays scored three runs in the sixth inning to beat the Detroit Tigers 7-5 on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.
The Tigers (14-11) took two of three from the Rays (13-13) this week and finished 4-2 on the six-game road swing.
The Tigers scored twice in the top of the sixth to take a 5-4 lead. Matt Vierling tripled and then scored on Buddy Kennedy’s RBI single. Kennedy stole second and came home on Javier Baez’s double to the gap.
But the lead was very brief. The Rays got a couple of hits off Tigers reliever Will Vest in the bottom of the sixth, and Curtis Mead came to the plate to strike the game’s most decisive blow.
On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Mead hit a slider 327 feet down the left-field line, just sneaking it inside the foul pole. According to Statcast, Mead’s swing had a hit probability of about 1 percent and would have been a home run at only one of the 30 big-league ballparks: Tropicana Field.
So it was a tough-luck loss for Vest and the Tigers, who couldn’t mount a second comeback in the final three innings.
Tigers starter Jack Flaherty labored early but made it through five innings, allowing four runs on seven hits. He struck out six, didn’t walk a batter and retired the final six batters he faced.
On the season, Flaherty now has 36 strikeouts and just four walks in 29 1/3 innings but is still searching for his first win as a Tiger.
Former Tiger Tyler Alexander, now with the Rays, entered the game in the second inning and allowed two runs through four innings before giving way to the bullpen.
An impressive streak : Flaherty couldn’t extend what has been an impressive streak for Tigers starting pitchers. Over the previous three days, Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal and Kenta Maeda have combined to throw 17 scoreless innings.
It’s the first time the Tigers have had three straight shutout starts of five innings or more in the same season since September 9-11, 1990. The trio that year was Scott Aldred, Frank Tanana and Steve Searcy.
Up next: The Tigers are off on Thursday. They open up a six-game homestand with a three-game series against the Kansas City Royals (14-10 entering Wednesday) on Friday at 1:10 p.m. at Comerica Park. Right-hander Reese Olson (0-3, 3.80 ERA) will start for the Tigers. The Royals have not announced their pitcher, but right-hander Seth Lugo (3-1, 2.03) is in line to make the start.
Olson took the loss on April 20 in Minnesota when two errors led to two unearned runs in the fifth inning . Lugo, 34, signed a three-year, $45 million deal with the Royals over the winter. He posted a 3.57 ERA in a career-high 146 1/3 innings last year with the San Diego Padres in his first full season as a starter since 2017. (He worked primarily out of the pen in seven seasons with the New York Mets). He’s struck out only 14 batters in 31 innings this year. He’s allowed only seven runs, four of them in his last start on April 21 against Baltimore.
