DETROIT — AJ Hinch, without seeking absolution, asked that everybody keep this horrific stretch of losing baseball in perspective.
An ask that's getting tougher with each passing day.
The Tigers' Miguel Cabrera is tagged out at home by Royals catcher Salvador Perez during the bottom of the third inning Monday at Comerica Park in Detroit.
“Without giving us a pass for underperforming, we have to stay positive,” he said. “It’s not going to get any better by coming to work in a bad mind frame or pouting or conceding. The only way to make it better is to beat the Royals today.”
Well, that didn’t happen. The losing streak hit five, as the Royals left Detroit with a 3-2 win and a four-game sweep Monday. The Tigers, off to their worst start (7-16) since 2003, have now lost 10 of 11. They’ve scored 20 runs in that stretch.
In a game of missed opportunities, the most frustrating came in the eighth off 35-year-old reliever Greg Holland. Rookie Akil Baddoo led off with a triple that missed by inches clearing the fence in left-center.
Those last 90 feet never came. Holland struck out Niko Goodrum, got pinch-hitter Wilson Ramos on a checked-swing tap at the plate and struck out Victor Reyes.
The Tigers stranded six runners in scoring position.
“We don’t accept it, not while I’m here or this group is here,” Hinch said before the game. “We have to come and play winning baseball every day. We have to have a winning mindset. If anybody starts accepting it, then I’d like to change the mix.”
They came into the game ranked last in the American League in runs scored, in wRC-plus (weighted runs created) and offensive WAR, as well as leading in strikeouts and fewest walks.
Bad formula.
But if ever the Tigers were going to snap out of their offensive funk, it was going to be Monday against struggling right-handed starter Brad Keller. His 16 earned runs were the most allowed in the American League coming in.
The Tigers had him on the ropes a couple of times, but, alas, didn’t have a knockout punch in them. They stranded four runners in scoring position through five innings, missing their best chance to put a crooked number on the board in the third.
Down 2-0, Robbie Grossman led off with a double. He went to third on a groundout by Harold Castro and scored on a single by Miguel Cabrera. Jeimer Candelario followed with a single, sending Cabrera to third. But that’s when things died.
Willi Castro squibbed a ground ball to short. Cabrera hesitated then tried to score from third. The throw home bounced to catcher Salvador Perez, but Cabrera didn’t slide and was tagged out. (Perez seemed to jam his right thumb on the tag and he came out of the game in the sixth.)
Baddoo struck out to end the inning.
The Tigers tied the game in the fourth inning on a triple by Goodrum and single by Grayson Greiner.
In the fifth, the Tigers had two on and two outs, and Keller was behind in the count to Baddoo, 3-0. Baddoo swung at the 3-0 pitch and flew out to center.
The Royals only got five hits off Tigers’ starter Spencer Turnbull in six innings, but they were loud ones. Carlos Santana hit a two-run homer in the third and in the fifth, 36-year-old Jarrod Dyson doubled and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Whit Merrifield.
Relievers Daniel Norris, Jose Cisnero and Gregory Soto each pitched a scoreless inning.
“The beautiful part of this situation is, there is a beginning and there is an end,” Hinch said. “We haven’t reached the end yet and that’s why we’re have to continue to answer these questions. But the only people who can end it are us in the clubhouse.”
