DETROIT — The scream from Jack Flaherty after his 95th and final pitch Wednesday night would’ve rivaled Tarik Skubal’s end-of-inning outbursts. He was one pitch away from a bases-loaded walk, something he hasn’t done since 2023. He was also one hittable pitch to Guardians cleanup hitter Kyle Manzardo away from the kind of runaway inning that has marked his inconsistent summer and tormented him in his search for success.
“I really wanted that 2-1 curveball,” Flaherty said. “I really felt like it was a pitch he wasn’t going to pull the trigger on, and I left it high and arm-side,” Flaherty said, replaying the at-bat in his head. “It was a point in the game there where you’ve just got to make some pitches.”
So Flaherty challenged Manzardo with a 94 mph fastball over the plate that Manzardo missed to run the count full. After Manzardo fouled off a slider to extend the at-bat, Flaherty unleashed his best pitch of the night, another 94 mph heater, this one on the bottom inside corner of the zone for a strikeout.
“He made the biggest pitches at the biggest moments,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “When he was able to get Manzardo out with the bases loaded, that was just as pivotal to the game staying a game at that moment as you can get. The fact that he could reach back a little bit and find the finish fastball in that moment felt like that was going to be the push to get us in a better position, because it kept us in the game.”
Flaherty roared, and so did the crowd. It wasn’t just the pent-up frustration of a frontline pitcher who had grinded through five innings of one-run ball despite four walks, albeit one an intentional pass to José Ramírez ahead of Manzardo’s strikeout. It was the sound of redemption for a pitcher who started the clinching game for the Dodgers in last year’s World Series but whose postseason role appeared in flux earlier this summer.
“You have to be in control when it comes down to making pitches,” Flaherty said. “But you’re just trying to gather all that emotion and go out and compete.”
If there was any question about Flaherty’s rotation spot in a Division Series, his past two starts have answered it. Instead, the question now facing the Tigers is whether they can get there first.
After a second consecutive close loss to the Guardians, this one a 4-0 defeat at Comerica Park, the Tigers have seen their AL Central lead whittled to 4 1/2 games. The last time their division advantage was this slim, Skubal had just shut out the Guardians on May 25, his 102.6 mph final pitch starting a five-game winning streak that put Detroit firmly in command of the division.
Fittingly, the Tigers will turn to Skubal on Thursday in hopes of salvaging a win and avoiding a series sweep that would turn the final nine games into a sprint and next week’s three-game series in Cleveland – including Flaherty’s next start – into a potential deciding set. But they’ll need to thwart the Guardians’ well-executed pitching plan with runs.
Their playoffs arguably start now.
“Listen, this is an incredible stretch of games in front of us to play our way into the playoffs,” Hinch said. “I mean, this is what we play the whole season for. So is it excitable? Of course. It’s pressure-packed. This is playoff baseball. I don’t think you have to concede to that.”
Detroit continues to dismiss the idea of feeling pressure, having played in tougher situations for nearly two months down the stretch last season. But Wednesday’s loss came in part from the Tigers’ inability to get to red-hot Guardians starter Gavin Williams or the bullpen, including four relievers they saw for a second consecutive night.
Detroit went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position Wednesday, leaving eight men on base. The club is 1-for-15 with 16 runners stranded for the series and 4-for-31 with runners in scoring position over its past five games.
“I don’t think we’re having bad at-bats,” said Riley Greene, who battled Williams in a 12-pitch strikeout and a 10-pitch walk. “I think we are really swinging it good. We’re just hitting the ball at people, and they’re making plays. We’re putting the ball in play. We’re hitting the ball hard. It’s just [that] they’re making plays.”
That doesn’t mean this isn’t frustrating.
“It sucks. We want to score, and I feel like we keep putting ourselves in good positions, and they make a play,” Greene said. “We hit a ball hard right at someone. It is what it is. We have to keep having good at-bats.”
Maybe everyone could use a good scream for a second.
