Rhett Lowder has his eyes on Yoshinobu Yamamoto as he works back from a pair of injuries that wreaked havoc on his 2025 campaign. Expected to be a part of the Cincinnati Reds’ starting rotation, the 23-year-old right-hander instead experienced a forearm issue in the spring, and that was followed by a more serious oblique strain. He ended up pitching just nine-a-third innings, all of them down on the farm.

Lowder is currently taking the mound for the Arizona Fall League’s Peoria Javelinas, and I caught up with him following a recent outing to learn what he’s been focusing on. Along with making up for lost innings, what is he doing to make himself a better pitcher?

“There are a couple things in the delivery, trying to take some pressure off the arm and the oblique, helping set myself up to be healthy,” replied Lowder, who’d logged a 1.17 ERA over six late-season starts with the Reds in 2024. “I’ve watched a little bit of Yamamoto and how he moves. Everything looks so effortless when he throws. I’ve tended to leak a little bit to the third base side, then compensate by over-rotating. That puts more pressure on the oblique, which is a rotational muscle, so I want to be more direct toward home plate with my delivery.”

Being direct to home plate is a common goal for pitchers. Appearance of effortlessness aside, what specifically made Yamamoto a point of study? Read the rest of this entry »

At last, we’ve got a World Series matchup to wrap our heads around. Representing the American League are the Blue Jays, who are back in the Fall Classic — making it a truly international World Series — for the first time since 1993. They’ll face the Dodgers, who are vying to become the first back-to-back champions since the 1999–2000 Yankees. They’re the first defending champions to repeat as pennant winners since the 2009 Phillies, who lost that World Series to the Yankees. If that matchup feels like a long time ago, consider that it’s been twice as long since the Blue Jays were here.

Though the core of the lineup is largely unchanged, this year’s Dodgers team differs from last year’s in that it has reached the World Series on the strength of its starting pitching rather than in spite of it. Due to a slew of injuries in the rotation last year, manager Dave Roberts resorted to using bullpen games four times to augment a rickety three-man staff consisting of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty, and Walker Buehler. Even as those starters (or “starters,” in some cases) put up a 5.25 ERA while averaging just 3.75 innings per turn, the bullpen and offense more than picked up the slack, and the Dodgers took home their second championship of the Roberts era.

This time around, with Flaherty and Buehler elsewhere and Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani joining Yamamoto, Dodgers starters have been absolutely dominant, posting a microscopic 1.40 ERA while averaging 6.43 innings per turn through the first three rounds, helping the team to paper over a shaky bullpen. After Snell utterly dominated the Brewers, holding them to just one hit over eight innings while facing the minimum number of batters in Game 1 of the NLCS, Yamamoto followed with a three-hit, one-run masterpiece — the first complete game in the postseason since the Astros’ Justin Verlander went the distance against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS. Glasnow, who began the postseason in the bullpen, allowed one run across 5 2/3 innings in Game 3 of the NLCS, while Ohtani backed his 10 strikeouts over six shutout innings in Game 4 with a three-homer game in what for my money stands as the greatest single-game postseason performance in baseball history. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin McGonigle is an elite prospect, and his bat is a big reason why. Playing across three levels in the Detroit Tigers organization — topping out at Double-A — the 21-year-old shortstop/third baseman slashed .305/.408/.583 with 19 home runs and 182 wRC+ over 397 plate appearances in 2025. Ranked third on The Board behind only Konnor Griffin and Jesús Made, McGonigle has been described by Eric Longenhagen as having “real juice in his hands” and a swing that is “geared for launch.” Built to bash baseballs, McGonigle’s left-handed stroke is both compact and lethal.

Currently with the Arizona Fall League’s Scottsdale Scorpions — he’s in the desert primarily to work on his defense — McGonigle has a bright future regardless of where he ends up in the infield. Longenhagen feels that his best fit might be second base. But again, there is juice in his hands. The bat is McGonigle’s carrying tool, and it promises to carry him a long way.

McGonigle sat down to talk hitting prior to a recent game at Scottsdale Stadium.

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David Laurila: How have you evolved as a hitter? For instance, if I looked at video from the time you signed and compared it now, would I see the same guy?

Kevin McGonigle: “You’d see the same swing. I’m a little bit bigger now, obviously, but the swing hasn’t changed. It’s been the same since I was 10 years old, to be honest with you. That’s the way my body naturally wants to move, and the best way I can explode on a baseball, so I try to keep doing the same thing I’ve done since I was younger.”

Laurila: How does your body naturally move?

McGonigle: “I’ve got the toe tap, and I’m in my legs more than a lot of guys are at the plate. I pretty much see ball, hit ball, and try to… not take the same swing. I feel that you’re going to have a different swing on every pitch. But I try to keep the same toe tap, the same everything.”

Laurila: While you’re continuing to do what comes naturally, you also have talented hitting instructors to work with. How are you balancing that?

McGonigle: “What I like about the Tigers is that they’re not really hands-on unless you have questions. I go to them for little pieces, like routines or drills that I want to do. One big thing for me was bat speed, so they put me on a bat-speed program last offseason. That really helped me with power this year. Bat-to-ball, of course. Gap-to-gap power. I’m trusting in them — the Tigers and all the coordinators — because they’re there to help you get better and better each day.”

Laurila: What is your approach in terms of where you’re looking to hit the ball?

McGonigle: “It depends on who is on the mound. If a good lefty is out there, I’ll think left-center gap and then just react to his offspeed and pull it. Same thing with right-handers. If it’s a guy throwing really hard, like upper-90s, maybe I’ll think right-center. That’s the farthest I’ll go with a heater. Then, changeup, curveball — whatever secondary he throws — pull it down the line. Top hook it in the corner is what I like thinking.

“When I’m on, I’m mostly hitting balls hard in the right-field gap or down the right-field line. That’s even with pitches dotted away. I’ll still be able to get under it and pull it. There does comes a time and place when I want to let the ball travel, though. With two strikes, I try to use all parts of the field.

“I’m also always sitting on fastballs and reacting to offspeed from there. I don’t like sitting on other pitches, really. If it’s a lefty that just spams sweepers, I’ll sit sweeper, but that’s about it. For me, it’s mostly all reaction.”

Laurila: My impression is that you fit into the KISS category — Keep It Simple, Stupid — yet you think about hitting quite a bit. Is that accurate?

McGonigle: “Definitely. I mean, if I’m hitting the ball hard and it’s going right at somebody, there’s nothing you can do about it. So, my main thing is to just find the barrel. That’s it. If you find the barrel, it’s a win. If you don’t, then get him next time.”

Laurila: Coming up from amateur ball and and through different levels of pro ball, you’re basically the same guy, but with more reps under your belt…

McGonigle: “Yeah, just seeing more pitching. In high school, I didn’t really see 95 [mph] really at all. Once I got a feel for that, I had to get used to guys having better offspeed. They like to throw it in leverage counts, and that’s one thing I really needed to work on this year. Last year I got a lot of fastballs to hit, and this year they’re flipping in 3-0 sliders, 3-1 sliders, changeups in 0-0 counts.

“Getting my hack off on 0-0 counts when I get offspeed that is middle-middle, or it’s a get-me-over offspeed… if I swing and miss, so what? I’m down 0-1. But if I put a barrel on it, then it’s a win. I’m more aggressive now than I was last year.

“If he’s a fastball-changeup guy who throws a lot of changeups, I’ll still sit fastball. A lot of times I’m going to look up. The changeup is going to start there, then have a little bottom to it and go to the heart of the plate. I’m kind of tunneling where I want the pitch to start.”

Laurila: Has bat-speed training helped you react better to heaters when you’ve been expecting something offspeed?

McGonigle: “Yeah. I’d say there were a few times this year that I was sitting offspeed, a guy threw a heater down the middle, and I was still was able to hit it hard to left field. Having a quicker bat has definitely helped. I’m able to protect on two-strike counts. If I’m beat on a fastball, I can at least get a bat on it and foul it off, give myself life to hopefully win that two-strike count.”

Laurila: How much do strikeouts matter? That was something Riley Greene struggled with this year, even while putting up good numbers.

McGonigle: “It’s not a great feeling. I mean, Riley Greene is a great baseball player. I’m looking forward to hopefully one day sharing a field with him. He wouldn’t be in the spot he is right now if it wasn’t for the way he plays baseball, and the way he hits. Strikeouts aren’t the best thing in the world, but he also performed in all the different aspects of the game. The whole strikeout thing… I think it is a big deal, but not as big as everyone thinks it is.”

Laurila: Outside of defense, what do the Tigers want you to work on this coming offseason?

McGonigle: “We have exit meetings with our hitting coordinators — mine will be after [the AFL] — and off the top of my head, I don’t know exactly. But the curveball is one pitch that I struggled with this year. I was either under it, or on top of it.”

Laurila: Why was that?

McGonigle: “Some of it was timing, but some of it was swinging at the wrong curveballs. If it’s low, that’s where the pitcher wants it, and the high ones would kind of fool me. A pitcher would go up top with a curveball, and I would clip it back, whereas that’s a pitch you want to hammer. I’m so used to training it down in the zone, where pitchers usually want to get it, but now some guys are trying to get it up top. I need to work on that, on hitting offspeed up top.”

Laurila: Any final thoughts on hitting?

McGonigle: “There’s not a perfect swing. Every swing is going to be different. If it’s a low pitch, if it’s a high pitch, if it’s away… but you see a lot of guys trying to chase that perfect swing. That’s hard to do when you have a guy throwing 99 and it’s running 20 inches, or sinking 20 inches. My thought is just, ‘Go up there and get the bat to the ball.’ Keep it that simple. Don’t try to chase the perfect swing. I want my swing to be adjustable. Simple and adjustable.”

——

Earlier “Talks Hitting” interviews can found through these links: Jo Adell, Jeff Albert, Greg Allen, Nolan Arenado, Aaron Bates, Jacob Berry, Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette, Justice Bigbie, Cavan Biggio, Charlie Blackmon, JJ Bleday, Bobby Bradley, Will Brennan, Jay Bruce, Triston Casas, Matt Chapman, Michael Chavis, Garrett Cooper, Gavin Cross, Jacob Cruz, Nelson Cruz, Paul DeJong, Brenton Del Chiaro, Josh Donaldson, Brendan Donovan, Donnie Ecker, Rick Eckstein, Drew Ferguson, Justin Foscue, Michael Fransoso, Ryan Fuller, Joey Gallo, Paul Goldschmidt, Devlin Granberg, Gino Groover, Matt Hague, Andy Haines, Mitch Haniger, Robert Hassell III, Austin Hays, Nico Hoerner, Jackson Holliday, Spencer Horwitz, Rhys Hoskins, Eric Hosmer, Jacob Hurtubise, Tim Hyers, Walker Jenkins, Connor Joe, Jace Jung, Josh Jung, Jimmy Kerr, Heston Kjerstad, Steven Kwan, Shea Langeliers, Trevor Larnach, Doug Latta, Dillon Lawson, Brooks Lee, Royce Lewis, Evan Longoria, Joey Loperfido, Michael Lorenzen, Mark Loretta, Gavin Lux, Dave Magadan, Trey Mancini, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Marcelo Mayer, Hunter Mense, Owen Miller, Paul Molitor, Colson Montgomery, Tre’ Morgan, Ryan Mountcastle, Cedric Mullins, Daniel Murphy, Lars Nootbaar, Logan O’Hoppe, Vinnie Pasquantino, Graham Pauley, David Peralta, Luke Raley, Julio Rodríguez, Brent Rooker, Thomas Saggese, Anthony Santander, Drew Saylor, Nolan Schanuel, Marcus Semien, Giancarlo Stanton, Spencer Steer, Trevor Story, Fernando Tatis Jr., James Tibbs III, Spencer Torkelson, Mark Trumbo, Brice Turang, Justin Turner, Trea Turner, Josh VanMeter, Robert Van Scoyoc, Chris Valaika, Zac Veen, Alex Verdugo, Mark Vientos, Matt Vierling, Luke Voit, Anthony Volpe, Joey Votto, Christian Walker, Jared Walsh, Jordan Westburg, Jesse Winker, Bobby Witt Jr. Mike Yastrzemski, Nick Yorke, Kevin Youkilis

The year of the splitter has come and gone. Actually, those of us who follow these things closely know that both 2023 and 2024 were considered the years of the splitter, and then we established back in March that 2025 would be the year of the kick change. While major league pitchers ran a 3.3% splitter rate in 2025, the highest mark since the pitch tracking era started in 2008, that represented a jump of just 0.21 percentage points from 2024. It’s a difference of less than one splitter per team every three games. While the number is still going up, the big increases came in 2023 and 2024, and the pace fell off this year.

That graph makes it official. This isn’t the year of the splitter. But now let me add another line to that graph. That was the regular season. We’re in the thick of the playoffs, so let’s throw the postseason in the mix, too. If you saw that first graph and wondered why I left all that empty space at the top, well, now you know.

That’s more like it. October 2025 has seen a splitter explosion. The red line is always going to be more volatile than the blue line because the postseason is such a small sample, but even so, the playoffs have seen a 6.6% splitter rate. That’s not just the highest we’ve ever seen. It’s twice the rate for any regular season or postseason in the past 23 years. Maybe 2025 was the year of the kick change, but October 2025 is very definitely shaping up to be the month of the splitter. The playoffs aren’t even over, and we’ve already seen more splitters this October than in the postseasons of 2023 and 2024 combined. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m trying out a new format for our managerial report cards this postseason. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the wild card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series was so short. This year, I’m skipping the first round, and grading only the managers who survived until at least the best-of-five series. Today, we’ll start with the two managers who lost in the American League Divisional Series, Aaron Boone and A.J. Hinch.

My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Cam Schlittler and Michael Busch were also great this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Blake Snell is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. I’m increasingly viewing pitching as a tradeoff between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think that almost no pitching decision is a no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Willie MacIver has caught a lot of power arms since entering pro ball in 2018. Some were in Sacramento this season — the 28-year-old University of Washington product spent a chunk of the summer with the Athletics, backing up Shea Langeliers — but none of those hurlers stand out as having the best raw stuff he’s been behind the dish for. That distinction belongs to a former Colorado Rockies farmhand whose brief major-league ledger includes a 22.09 ERA and a 22.7% walk rate over five appearances comprising three-and-a-third innings.

“I caught a guy named Riley Pint,” said MacIver, citing the right-handed flamethrower whom the Rockies drafted fourth overall in 2016 out of an Overland, Kansas high school. “To this day, he has the best stuff I’ve ever seen. I caught him from Low-A all the way through Triple-A, so I was on the ride with him the whole time.”

That ride isn’t necessarily over. Pint is just 27 years old, and while he missed the 2025 season with an injury, the arm is indeed special. MacIver caught him as recently as 2024, and it’s being Pint, and not recent teammate Mason Miller, who he cited speaks volumes.

“When we were in Low-A, it was 102 [mph] all over the place,” MacIver told me. “Then he started throwing a sinker. We were at Driveline together and he was throwing sinkers that were registering as left-handed curveballs on the TrackMan. He could make the ball move like nothing else. His sinker would be like negative-eight, and then he would throw a true sweeper that was Morales-like with the horizontal, but at 87 [mph]. Read the rest of this entry »

SEATTLE — On a per-game basis during the regular season, the Mariners and Tigers both scored and allowed roughly the same number of runs — 4.70 and 4.28, respectively. Through the first four games of the best-of-five ALDS, each team eked out a one-run win and each team triumphed in something of a laugher. Both teams won one game at home and one game on the road, and both teams relied extensively on their bullpens. Heading into Game 5 on Friday night in Seattle, it was clear one team was going to need to do something to distinguish itself. These teams entered the night locked in a dead heat, having played matching hands for much of the series and needing a new strategy, something different to get an edge and break the stalemate, and even then, it required 15 innings and four hours and 58 minutes to do that. When it was all over, the Mariners had outlasted the Tigers, 3-2, on a walk-off single by Jorge Polanco to advance to the American League Championship Series for the first time in 24 years.

“I don’t even know where to begin to try to recap all the heroic efforts that went into today,” manager Dan Wilson said. “And 15 innings? I’ve got to say, I don’t know how the fans kept their energy going. It was unbelievably loud, even in the 15th inning. And this is a special place. T-Mobile Park is a special place, and they showed us that tonight. And just an incredible ballgame from top to bottom.”

Both starting pitchers were taking the mound for a second time in the series, and both brought a slightly different approach to Game 5 than what they put on tape in their prior starts. In Game 1, Seattle starter George Kirby threw his slider 31% of the time; it was the first pitch he threw to eight of the 22 batters he faced. In Game 5, Kirby went to his slider 50% of the time and threw it as the first pitch to 10 of the 18 batters he faced. After the game, he confirmed this was a conscious shift in strategy to show Detroit’s lineup something different from what it’d seen from him six days prior. “All those guys from top to bottom are probably looking for a heater to start,” Kirby said, “and just starting off with a slider, curveball, whatever it may be, just — if I kept them off balance a little bit, I was able to attack the zone a little bit more with my fastball.” By mixing in more sliders early in the count, he was able to maintain the effectiveness of his four-seamer despite the recent exposure. Though the slider-heavy approach meant Kirby racked up fewer strikeouts than usual, he finished his outing allowing just three hits and one earned run over five innings with six punchouts. Read the rest of this entry »

Even the best pitchers in baseball lose a game once in a while. Just ask Tarik Skubal. I’m sure you’ve read about it a hundred times by now, but the Mariners have won all three of their games this year where Skubal was the opposing starter. Seattle was the only team to hand him multiple losses during the regular season, and the Tigers dropped Game 2 of the ALDS — technically a no-decision for Skubal — less than a week ago. Now, thanks to his team’s roaring come-from-behind victory in Game 4, Skubal is lined up to start tonight’s decisive Game 5, giving him an opportunity to finally beat the Mariners this year.

I’ll give a warning upfront: This article is going to lean pretty heavily on batter-pitcher matchup stats; we’ll be examining some extremely small samples. But I think it’s an interesting investigation into the strategy that unfolds between familiar foes during a short postseason series.

What I really wanted to know is whether the Mariners had a specific approach that made them so successful against Skubal this year. As I mentioned, Skubal faced the Mariners twice during the regular season. On April 2, in Seattle, he allowed three runs in 5.2 innings; he gave up six hits and three walks while striking out eight. On July 11, he faced them again, this time in Detroit, and allowed four runs in five innings; he gave up just four hits and two walks while striking out five. His Game 2 start this past Sunday was his best yet: He surrendered two runs on five hits and one walk in seven innings while notching nine strikeouts. The two home runs off the bat of Jorge Polanco were his undoing. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe the three runs the Tigers scored in the ninth inning of their Game 3 blowout loss weren’t so inconsequential after all. Maybe they were a sign of better things to come on Wednesday. Facing elimination, Detroit’s bats woke up in a big way in Game 4 en route to a 9-3 victory. That sends the American League Division Series back to Seattle on Friday for a decisive Game 5, allowing Tarik Skubal one more chance to beat the Mariners for good.

Consider this: Through the first three games of the ALDS, the Mariners had hit more home runs than the Tigers had extra-base hits. Kerry Carpenter hit a home run in Game 1, the team’s lone long ball to that point, and Spencer Torkelson and Gleyber Torres each had a pair of doubles, but that was it. Granted, three of those extra-base hits drove in runs, and two of them tied the game — the Tigers made the most of their limited opportunities — but Seattle had been absolutely outslugging Detroit:

Indeed, outside of Carpenter’s clutch home run, a pair of two-run doubles from Torkelson, and four hits off the bat of Torres, the Tigers offense had been conspicuously absent during the series. Even after their mini-rally in the ninth on Tuesday, Detroit was batting .165 and slugging .233 as a team entering Game 4. On the other hand, Seattle was slugging .423 even while batting just .212 through three games. That narrative completely flipped on Wednesday. The Tigers collected seven extra-base hits (three home runs and four doubles), while the Mariners could only muster one. Torkelson, Torres, Zach McKinstry, and Javier Báez each had multiple hits, and Jahmai Jones had a huge pinch-hit double in the decisive fifth inning.

And as they have all series long, home runs defined the shape of Game 4. Riley Greene had been mostly bottled up during the ALDS; he had collected just two hits through the first three games of the series. His first extra-base hit against Seattle was a 454-foot blast to give the Tigers a 4-3 lead in the sixth inning. After hitting 36 homers during the regular season, his go-ahead home run was the first of his postseason career and broke open the floodgates for the Tigers. For his part, Báez hit his first postseason home run since the 2017 NLCS, a two-run shot, later in the inning. Then in the seventh, Torres continued his hot hitting by launching an opposite field solo shot to extend the Tigers’ lead, making it 8-3.

The game hadn’t started off so lopsided. As they have in each game of the series, the Mariners got on the board first, scoring a run in each of the second, fourth, and fifth innings. With a 3-0 lead halfway through the ballgame, things were looking pretty encouraging for the Mariners. They’ll likely look back on Wednesday and be haunted by some pretty big missed opportunities to put the game away early. In the fourth, Seattle loaded the bases with no outs, but wound up pushing just one run across after a double play and a pop out squelched the threat. The next inning, the first two batters reached, earning the team another run, but the Mariners couldn’t keep the rally going.

Things turned in the bottom half of that inning. Torkelson led off with a single, and after a fielder’s choice, Dillon Dingler drove in the Tigers’ first run with a double. That chased Bryce Miller from the game, and Mariners manager Dan Wilson went with trustworthy lefty Gabe Speier to face the bottom of Detroit’s lineup. Jones, pinch-hitting for Parker Meadows, ripped the first pitch he saw down the left field line to drive in Dingler, and Báez tied the game with a single up the middle in the next at-bat. Speier came back out in the sixth inning to face Greene, but the Tigers left fielder turned on a hanging slider and deposited it in the right field stands. From there, the flood gates opened. The Tigers scored three more in the sixth, capped off by Báez’s home run off Eduard Bazardo, and they added insurance runs in the seventh and eighth.

For Seattle, it’s a pretty concerning shift from what had been a fairly dominant bullpen through three games. Even when you include the three runs allowed by Caleb Ferguson in the ninth inning of Game 3, Mariners relievers had put up a 3.38 ERA and a 1.71 FIP in 13.1 innings during the ALDS — their ERA drops to 1.35 if you ignore those garbage time runs. The Tigers have also scored all of their runs in this series in the fifth inning or later, putting even more pressure on the Mariners’ relief corps.

The runs Speier and Bazardo allowed in Game 4 were their first of the series, and you have to wonder if familiarity is starting to work against Seattle’s ‘pen. Bazardo has appeared in all four games, while Speier has now gotten some high-leverage work in three of the four games, including facing Carpenter and Greene three times apiece. Because Detroit’s most dangerous hitters are left-handed, Speier will almost certainly be called on to work in Game 5 on Friday, and thanks to Ferguson’s struggles on Tuesday — he’s the only other lefty in Seattle’s bullpen — Speier seems like the most critical piece of the pitching puzzle for Wilson and the Mariners.

The Tigers turned to Game 1 starter Troy Melton to shut down the Mariners bats once they had tied it up in the fifth. Melton worked around some trouble in the sixth, getting Randy Arozarena to fly out to center after allowing two two-out baserunners. The right-hander carved through the heart of the Mariners order on seven pitches in the seventh, then erased a leadoff baserunner in the eighth with a made-to-order double play, again only needing seven pitches to set the M’s down in order; he has to have Tigers manager A.J. Hinch feeling really good should the team need a fireman to quell a late rally from the Mariners on Friday. Will Vest closed the door with a 1-2-3 ninth.

While Detroit’s starter for the decisive Game 5 isn’t in question, Seattle’s is still unsettled. Both George Kirby and Luis Castillo could start Friday’s game on normal rest, and both looked pretty good in their earlier starts this series. Ultimately, it’ll come down to who Wilson trusts more to work through the Tigers’ lineup twice, with whoever doesn’t make the start likely available out of the bullpen anyway. I should mention that between the two, Kirby is the only one who has made a relief appearance during his big league career, closing out Game 2 of the 2022 Wild Card series against the Blue Jays.

No matter who starts for the Mariners on Friday, this was the exact scenario they were hoping to avoid. Allowing Skubal two opportunities to affect the outcome of the series is a very dangerous proposition, even if Seattle has beaten him three times this year. Tempting fate a fourth time tips the scales toward Detroit; our ZiPS game-by-game odds currently give the Tigers a 54% chance of advancing to the ALCS (assuming a Kirby start for Seattle). That’s a percentage Mariners fans are well acquainted with.

Water falling from the skies over Comerica Park delayed the start of a pivotal ALDS Game 3 between the Tigers and the Mariners by close to three hours. Once things dried out, Seattle’s batters rained on Detroit’s parade. Eugenio Suárez, J.P. Crawford, and Cal Raleigh all homered, and that was more than enough to support the pitching of Logan Gilbert and four Mariners relievers. When all was said and done, Seattle had an 8-4 win and a 2-1 edge in the best-of-five series.

The game started with a successful challenge. Randy Arozarena was initially ruled safe after Gleyber Torres threw to first to field a comebacker that glanced off of Jack Flaherty’s glove, but replay review reversed the call. Seattle’s leadoff hitter was out by an eyelash. A few swings later, Detroit’s starter had retired the side on just eight pitches. It was to be his only easy inning.

The Mariners made the right-hander work in the second. Josh Naylor had an 11-pitch at-bat, finally grounding out on Flaherty’s first changeup of the evening. Three other batters saw six pitches apiece. Suárez walked, Jorge Polanco and Dominic Canzone fanned, and Flaherty walked off the mound having thrown 29 in the frame, and 37 overall. It was apparent early that the Tigers bullpen would be well-worked by game’s end.

A Dillon Dingler single gave Detroit a runner in the bottom half, but as had happened in the first, Gilbert ended the mini-threat with a strikeout, leaving a Tiger stranded. Never really in trouble over the course of his outing, the tall right-hander nonetheless squelched every semblance of a Detroit rally. Read the rest of this entry »