CLEVELAND — The Tigers’ late-season run arguably began on a Parker Meadows home run robbery in Seattle. It accelerated on a Meadows highlight grab in Baltimore in the penultimate weekend of the regular season. As the graceful, athletic center fielder lined up George Valera’s drive to near-straightaway center on Wednesday night, he was poised to make the play to thwart the Guardians rookie and help save the Tigers’ season.
“I knew off the bat, I had a chance at it,” Meadows said. “Just tried to get to the wall as quick as possible to make a play on it.”
The flight into the wall, back at the fence, the reach with the glove, all looked like that incredible play in Seattle. The bounce of the ball just over the top of the fence as Meadows went tumbling onto the warning track looked like so many other close plays the Tigers have tried during their eight-game losing streak.
“It hit my glove,” Meadows said after the Tigers’ 5-1 loss to the Guardians at Progressive Field. “That’s usually a ball, in my opinion, that I should catch. Just kind of sums up how things have been going lately. Honestly, just an inch away.”
The 393-foot drive is a home run only in Progressive Field, according to Statcast. In most other parks, Meadows doesn’t have to even get to the fence, let alone leap.
“That was one I was hoping wasn’t going to get over the fence,” Detroit starter Jack Flaherty said. “It kept going, which happens on breaking balls. It just backspun and kept going like that. Parker gave his best on it.”
The Tigers have had their share of plays like that during their skid, but especially against Cleveland, they’ve had plays of inches like this, whether it’s the Guardians continuing their incredible defensive effort to run down hard-hit balls or Detroit defenders barely missing a play.
Even Wednesday, Wenceel Pérez followed Riley Greene’s second-inning walk with a 106.5 mph ground ball that had a 66 percent hit probability according to Statcast. It took Brayan Rocchio to the back of the infield dirt as he played it on the hop, but he got it cleanly and quickly enough to start an inning-ending double play. Three batters later, Daniel Schneeman’s grounder took a high hop off Spencer Torkelson’s glove for a two-base error as the Tigers first baseman looked on in bewilderment.
The timing of Valera’s home run, a half-inning after Meadows’ sacrifice fly had opened the scoring as the lone run in a three-hit inning against Tanner Bibee, provided another reminder of the scorn of the baseball gods.
“They made some incredible defensive plays because they’re a good team,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “They’re making winning plays, and we kept coming at them. And even what I thought was going to be a sac fly carries out of the ballpark, and it’s a 2-1 game, there’s still a lot of life in the dugout and a lot to play for. But the at-bats get a little bit quicker, and the at-bats get a little bit tougher, and then they start matching up, and they have an elite ‘pen and they get their outs.
“It’s a combination of things, but it certainly doesn’t feel good. And when you’re going through the games that we’re going through, it’s obviously impacting a lot of people.”
At this point, the Tigers are playing out the baseball equivalent of the painfully climactic scene in the Kevin Costner movie Tin Cup, where he heads to the 18th hole leading the U.S. Open and proceeds to hit one ball after another into the water in an attempt to hit the green. Some of the balls hit the green and roll off and others splash right into the water, but it gets tougher and more emotional to watch with each determined swing and each ball meeting the same fate until, defeat long since wrapped up, he finally lands one.
The latest defeat dropped the Tigers out of first place altogether in the AL Central for just the sixth day this season and the first since April 22. With the tiebreaker, they’re essentially two games behind Cleveland. They continue to hold onto the third AL Wild Card spot, which — if the current seedings held — would bring them back to Cleveland and their house of horrors next week for a best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Guardians. But they have four games left to even get there, and just two starters to use.
“It’s been frustrating,” Meadows said, “but we’re not going to dwell on the past. Tomorrow’s a new day. We still have a big opportunity ahead of us. We’re going to keep fighting, show up every day. We’ve got a good group. Everybody believes in each other, and we know baseball’s a crazy game, and crazy things can happen.”
Maybe, just maybe, it’ll happen in their favor.
“We feel very due,” Meadows said.
