MINNEAPOLIS — If there was a tone set for Matt Manning’s fifth big league start Friday night, it came before the game from manager AJ Hinch.
His message to the rookie after three straight rough outings was essentially this:
"He doesn't have to be superman tonight,” he paraphrased to reporters. “He needs to get outs and compete. Put one foot in front of the other and be a little better than he was last time. Eventually you will take off in a sprint and become the guy you're going to become."
Manning did exactly that. He put one foot in front of the other, he didn’t get rattled by some loud contact early, he mixed in all his pitches, settled in and produced the best start of his young career, going five-plus innings in the Tigers' 4-2 loss to the Twins at Target Field.
Manning didn’t give up a hit until the fifth, and the two runs on his line were scored after he gave up a single and walk to start the sixth and was pulled from the game. He was at 69 pitches when Hinch came and got him.
Lefty Ian Krol’s return to a big league mound for the first time since 2018 couldn’t have gone much worse. He balked and the runners advanced to second and third. Then left-handed hitting Trevor Larnach banged a single through the drawn-in infield to score one run and Nelson Cruz hit a sacrifice fly to score the second.
With two on and two out — Krol walked left-handed hitting Alex Kirilloff — left-handed hitting Max Kepler tripled on a sinking liner to left field that Robbie Grossman dived for but couldn’t stop. It rolled to the wall and both runs scored easily.
Grossman got those two runs back in the top of the eighth, smashing a two-run homer into the seats in left. It was his career-high 12th. But that was the full extent of the Tigers' offense.
The silver lining, though, was the impressive growth shown by Manning, who hadn’t gotten out of the fourth inning in his last two starts.
It looked early like he might be living on borrowed time again. In the first inning, he shook off a sign from catcher Jake Rogers on a 1-2 pitch. Rogers wanted something off-speed, Manning wanted fastball. His 95-mph fastball left Josh Donaldson’s bat with an exit velocity of 107 mph and traveled to the wall in center where Akil Baddoo ran it down.
He threw a first pitch slider to Cruz leading off the second. That one flew off the bat at 115 mph and landed in Nomar Mazara’s glove at the wall in right field. Miguel Sano led off the third hitting a 2-0 fastball to the wall in right (103 mph off the bat).
But by the end of the third, though, Manning was in control. He was far less reliant on his fastball, throwing a slider, curve and change-up for strikes. Eleven times he started hitters out with a secondary pitch, making his fastball more effective.
Case in point: In the fourth inning against Larnach, Manning got ahead 0-2 with a curveball and a change-up. He missed with another change-up and then threw two straight 95-mph four-seamers — the second one froze Larnach for a called third strike.
The first hit off Manning came with one out in the fourth — Kepler lined an opposite-field single to left, sending Jorge Polanco (walked) to third.
But Manning didn’t break. He struck out Sano with a nasty, hard-biting slider and got Ben Rortvedt to ground out.
Fellow rookie Tarik Skubal also pitched 4 1/3 hitless innings on Thursday. According to Elias Sports Skubal and Manning are the first rookie starters to have back-to-back games with 4 1/3 no-hit innings since Daniel Ponce de Leon (7 no-hit innings) and Austin Gomber (7 1/3 no-hit innings) did it for the Cardinals on July 23-24, 2018.
Manning threw 66% fastballs in his previous outings. He cut that down to 52% Friday and used the whole palette. He mixed 16 change-ups, 13 sliders and four curves with 36 heaters.
