Detroit Tigers Drop First Game of ALDS to Guardians After Awful Start
The Detroit Tigers had a nightmare start to the first game of the ALDS against the Cleveland Guardians and were unable to recover as they dropped it by a score of 7-0.
After having a nice couple of outings in the Wild Card round, the Tigers rolled out southpaw Tyler Holton as the games opener.
It went about as poorly as it possibly could. Steven Kwan hit a double that looked like it was about to leave the park on the second pitch of the day. David Fry then worked an eight-pitch count and ended up getting walked.
Detroit third baseman Zach McKinstry played a ball very poorly coming down the line from Jose Ramirez and picked up an error on a ball that flew past him and allowed Kwan to cross home plate.
Josh Naylor then singled into right field and brought Fry in.
The Tigers pulled Holton for Reese Olson in an attempt to get them out of a jam with no outs yet recorded. OIson gave up a three-run shot to Lane Thomas to push the Guardians ahead by five in the first inning.
Olson was able to string together a couple of outs after that and finally ended the inning before things got even worse. Cleveland was just one player away from batting around.
While Olson was able to smooth things out on the mound for the next couple of innings, keeping the score at 5-0 for the next four.
The problem is that the Tigers offense was unable to get anything going and were never able to make the game interesting again.
Detroit reliever Ty Madden gave up two more runs in what already felt like a done deal of a game.
The Tigers were just never able to get a groove going and giving up five runs immediately in a game that they were already expected to lose did nothing to help out morale.
Detroit's bats will need to be better if they want a chance at taking this series. The top of their lineup with just 3-15 at the plate in this one and got virtually nothing from the bottom part either.
Pressure amps up for the Tigers from here on out in a best of 5-series. The good news is that the best pitcher in baseball this season is heading back onto the mound on Monday as Tarik Skubal will try to even things out before they head back to Detroit.
