Tigers Take Two: Can I Believe My Eyes?
Once Every Fifty Years …
A surreal moment in time occurred in Boston on Tuesday, April 23, 2019. It last occurred on that exact spot more than half a century ago in 1965. Once every fifty years …
What happened? The (once) lowly Detroit Tigers swept a day-night doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox. The scores were 7-4 and 4-2.
The Detroit Tigers came up with clutch hits at the precise moments they needed them. Players like Brandon Dixon (not a household name), a refugee released by the Cincinnati Reds last season and rescued by the Tigers, was last seen smacking sharp line drives off the Green Monster as his gleeful teammates scurried around the bases crossing home plate in the nightcap of the twin bill.
Detroit Is Boston, Boston Is Detroit, and Up Is Down, Really?
In the opener, a tall, young catcher from the University of South Carolina with an unheard of alliterative, Grayson Greiner, swatted a fastball over the Green Monster with the kind of oomph usually reserved for batting practice meatballs, not a Chris Sale fastball.
The other exploits that stood out were mostly by the Tigers, who roamed Fenway Park slowly with a ferocious appetite for victory. Josh Harrison seemed the old nettlesome player who once roamed Forbes Field (sorry, that’s how I think of any baseball stadium in Pittsburgh). Driving the ball with authority, Harrison drove in two key runs in the eighth inning of game one to break it open for the Tigers. Slapping his hands at second base. Somehow the image of Bill Matlock came to mind. Harrison is not Matlock, but something about the moment was special.
The only Red Sox snarling was Xander Bogaerts who smashed two balls over the Green Monster in the opener and flipped a Texas Leaguer over the shortstop’s head in the nightcap for one of Boston’s two runs. And a sense of hope. The other Red Sox players seemed to be sleepwalking through the games. Perhaps smelling salts might work? Once every fifty years …
Matthew Boyd, the Detroit pitcher in the opener, threw seven innings of three-hit, three-run baseball. That was good enough to win his second game of the season and continue his ascent to the top of the pitching charts in the American League.
The last Detroit left-hander with such an arsenal was a bit more rotund than Boyd, though equally effective, Mickey Lolich. Which is why Boyd is so unusual. A left-handed Detroit pitcher who can pitch. Once every fifty years … (Lolich starred for the Tigers in the 1968 World Series, winning three of the four games the Tigers took from the St. Louis Cardinals.)
The Red Sox wailed away at Boyd’s 87 pitches that included an array of sharp sinkers and darting sliders, never really figuring him out. He finished the game with a 2-1 record, a 3.16 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP, the kind of WHIP usually seen on Chris Sale’s stat line. Even Alex Cora spoke of Boyd’s dastardly breaking pitches, perhaps secretly wishing Dave Dombroski had signed Boyd, not Sale, to that lusty five-year contract.
Chris Sale threw his 100 pitches over five innings, struck out 10, but was strangely inefficient and then gone. Perhaps that was because the Tigers made him work hard, throw pitch after pitch—what Boston usually does to other pitching staffs. And unlike the Tigers of yesteryear, these Tigers pushed Sale out of his comfort zone. And while he did not lose the game, he lost the 2-0 lead Boston staked him to. So, it’s no surprise Sale is still sporting ugly numbers one month into the season: an 0-4 record with a 7.43 ERA and an equally bulbous 1.52 WHIP. Worth $30 million these days, in some executive’s minds.
Boston debuted two minor league pitchers yesterday in the nightcap: Travis Lakins and Darwinzon Hernandez. They could be the first of many young hurlers debuting in Boston this season if Red Sox pitching remains as uneven as it has been so far.
To See Boston so Discombobulated …
To see J.D. Martinez striking out when he usually delivers a crushing three-run home run to put his imprimatur on a game. Or to see Mookie Betts look lost at the plate again, paints the baseball world in a fuzzy shade of, what? Can this be happening? Which Gods have the Red Sox challenged? Once every fifty years …
Last season Boston, not Detroit, would have been the team to score in the clutch and sweep the doubleheader. But this is this year, not last year. And for the first time in years, Detroit seems to be filling the diamond with young, hustling players full of talent and energy. And for the first two games in Boston, the looked young, fresh, and hungry. The Red Sox looked tired, very tired. As if they played a thousand games last season.
Speaking as a neutral observer, it’s ironic that Dave Dombroski was captain of the ship in Detroit between 2002 and 2015. It’s true that Detroit won the American League pennant in 2006 and 2012, losing the World Series to the Cardinals in 2006 and San Francisco in 2012. But since 2012, the Tigers grew old very fast. And it seems the Red Sox have fallen prey to aging bones quite quickly themselves. What can Dombroski do? Ask for a do-over on the Chris Sale contract? Hope J. D. Martinez opts out after this season. Sign more Xander Bogaerts, a lot more. What else can he do? Hypnotize Mookie Betts?
Perhaps the tea leaves look too blanched right now, and maybe the read here is too extreme, but something has changed in Boston. The Gods are throwing thunderbolts at Alex Cora, who looks shell-shocked in the dugout. Quietly dignified disgust.
I can’t believe my eyes. Once every fifty years …
