This is going to take some getting used to.
Instead of Miguel Cabrera (suspended), Victor Martinez (out for the season), J.D. Martinez (traded), Justin Upton (traded) and Alex Avila (traded), the Tigers lineup Saturday night featured four players who started the season in Triple-A, three of them originally signed to minor-league contracts — Alex Presley, Efren Navarro (batting fourth), Jeimer Candalario and Bryan Holaday.
With Justin Verlander traded and Michael Fulmer injured, the new ace of the staff is Jordan Zimmermann.
Cleveland Indians starter Corey Kluber entered the game with the best ERA in the American League among qualified pitchers (2.63).
Detroit Tigers starter Jordan Zimmermann ended the game with the worst (6.18).
Against Kluber, the Tigers’ lineup – without first baseman Miguel Cabrera, who began serving a six-game suspension – had little chance.
Zimmermann allowed four runs on six hits (including a triple misplayed by outfielder Alex Presley) in a miserable first inning. He hung on to pitch through the fifth, giving up just one more run.
Catcher Bryan Holaday got a rare start based in part on his track record against Kluber (he entered the game 5-for-11 with a home run in his career).
Holaday delivered on Saturday, doubling in the third and then driving home the Tigers' only run with a single in the seventh.
Kluber struck out seven and didn't walk a batter in eight innings.
Presley had a career-high four hits, all singles. All of them came against Kluber.
The Tigers fell 19 games under .500 for the first time since the end of the 2005 season, when they finished 71-91. They hired Jim Leyland as manager the day after that season ended.
NOTABLE
Tigers right-handed pitcher Myles Jaye made his Major League debut when he replaced Zimmermann in the sixth inning.
He pitched into the ninth, when he hit two batters and was pulled. Before that, he allowed only two infield singles in three scoreless innings. One of them was by Indians center fielder Greg Allen.
First baseman Efren Navarro got his first hit in a Tigers uniform (and first in the big leagues since 2015) when he smacked a bouncer up the middle against Kluber in the fourth inning.
Tigers rookie third baseman Jeimer Candelario started at third base (for the first time in the American League) and went 0-for-3 against Kluber, but picked up an infield single in the ninth against Bryan Shaw.
It was the Tigers’ third straight loss and their seventh in the last eight against the Indians.
Manager Brad Ausmus, who served his one-game suspension and handed the reins to Gene Lamont said;
“I don’t think guys are happy because they want to win and the guys who are gone helped us win — and they were well-liked guys,”. “Nobody is throwing a party over it.
“But the business of baseball; when you are a baseball player you learn to cope with it because you have a job to do. If you can’t cope with it, you probably aren’t going to be around long.”
ROARS:
Alex Presley - who seemed to be the only player who could consistently get hits off Kluber, though none of them turned into runs. He did net a four-hit game though.
Bryan Holaday - scored the Tigers’ first run of the night, which was helped in part by an overturned call that saw Mikie Mahtook returned to base, who would ultimately get the run. He ended 16 consecutive scoreless innings for the Tigers.
HISSES:
Zimmermann - not catastrophic still isn’t good.
The rest of this month will be more about auditions and evaluations than wins and losses for the Tigers.
After Zimmermann, the rest of the rotation lines up like this: Chad Bell (Sunday), Artie Lewicki (Monday), Anibal Sanchez (Tuesday), Matthew Boyd (Wednesday).
Bell and Lewicki have just been recalled from Toledo and both will be making their first big-league starts. Sanchez will come off the disabled list before his start.
Buck Farmer is also in the mix, though Ausmus said before the game he thought the club would stay with a five-man rotation. That means that Farmer, Bell and Lewicki will be auditioning for two of the spots.
If it was not about payroll, they’d go out and sign free-agents this offseason w/the money they’ve saved.
IT’S ABOUT THE MONEY. and the Ilitch Family is worth SIX BILLIONS DOLLARS.
