Bad luck hurts Norris, Tigers in G1 loss

DETROIT -- The 418-foot drive from Ryan Goins sent JaCoby Jones on a mad dash to right-center field, having been shaded to the opposite outfield gap and playing shallow after three games in the smaller outfield of Texas' Globe Life Park. Still, Jones not only ran it down, but somehow had the ball in his glove before it popped up as he crashed to the ground, putting Goins on with a second-inning triple.

“He covered an awful lot of ground on that,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “It was one of those tries that he does all the time. He makes spectacular plays all the time. Unfortunately, the ground knocked that one out.”

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By contrast, José Abreu’s first-inning loft sent Travis Demeritte racing towards the right-field corner before the ball carried over the fence and into the tunnel. The 348-foot home run was short by Comerica Park standards, which is reflected in its .330 expected batting average according to Statcast, but it was a reward for an 11-pitch at-bat that included seven pitches Abreu fouled off.

“It was a battle,” Tigers starter Daniel Norris said. “I tried to mix in a two-seamer there and sort of just left it [over the] middle. He put a decent swing on it. I think if I make my pitches there, the at-bat’s over. But I was just kinda leaving stuff and he was fouling it off. Then I left it too middle, and he got it.”

Both hits hurt Norris, as did Abreu’s fifth-inning liner that fooled Demeritte and carried over his head for an RBI double. It was a quirky outing that started a long Tuesday of baseball with a 5-3 Tigers loss to the White Sox in the opener of a day-night doubleheader.

Goins’ triple wasn’t even the longest drive of the game; Brandon Dixon’s 427-foot drive to center smacked off the wall for a third-inning triple that set up Detroit’s first run on Niko Goodrum’s groundout. Jake Rogers’ first Comerica Park home run, a 408-foot drive into the left-field bullpen, completed Detroit’s damage off White Sox starter Dylan Cease.

Norris (3-9) had allowed just three runs over 15 1/3 innings with 16 strikeouts in his previous three starts, an encouraging stretch of progress coming from a three-month stretch of regular turns in Detroit’s rotation. Tuesday’s outing wasn’t nearly as effective, especially with his slider and changeup, but it also wasn’t as rough as the damage would’ve suggested. He allowed five balls in play with exit velocities of 100 mph and up, capped by Welington Castillo’s sixth-inning leadoff homer at 109.7 mph, but much of the damage was on softer contact. An acrobatic catch from Jones and a surer read from Demeritte would’ve left Norris with a potential quality start.

“If anything, you want to pick your teammates up,” Norris said. “Their effort, you appreciate that and want to end the inning. That was my frustration.”

Jones followed his near-catch by trying to cut off Adam Engel’s liner toward the gap in left-center, but couldn’t get there in time on the RBI double.

Though the Tigers taxed Cease (2-4) for 101 pitches over five innings, they left four runners in scoring position against him, missed chances that haunted them the rest of the afternoon. Cease struck out Demeritte with a 98 mph inside fastball to strand two runners in the third inning, then concluded his outing with a strikeout of John Hicks to strand a runner on third in the fifth.

“We missed chances to score some runs early and really never got back into it,” Gardenhire said. “We had some good at-bats.”

Detroit rallied against White Sox closer Alex Colomé with a two-out walk from Jones and an RBI single through the middle from Harold Castro, bringing the tying run to the plate. But Colome held on for his 22nd save in 23 chances.