Flaherty proving himself ace-like with trade season looming

DETROIT -- A.J. Hinch rarely makes a mound visit without a pitching change, especially with his starting pitcher. The Tigers manager has his mind made up before he steps out of the dugout. So when Hinch made the long walk to see Jack Flaherty with the tying run on base with two outs in the sixth inning Friday night, the assumption was that he had the hook with him. After all, Flaherty was just a start removed from a back issue that ended one outing and led to the Tigers skipping him for a turn through the rotation.

Instead of the hook, Hinch brought a message.

“I asked him if he could get the guy,” Hinch said after the Tigers’ 2-1 win. “I wanted to see where he was physically coming off the last outing. He’s never going to say, ‘I can’t get him,’ so I wanted to show him some confidence.”

Flaherty took the message, refocused … and walked Oscar Colás on four pitches, prompting Hinch to make a return visit and bring in Beau Brieske to end the threat. Still, the vote of confidence was significant.

“Sometimes you’re wrong, I guess, in how you feel,” Flaherty said. “When he came out and asked, I told him that I’ll always be honest with him. If I don’t have it, I don’t have it. I would’ve told him, but I still felt good. Obviously, it doesn’t look that way when you throw four straight [balls] not really even close.”

With 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball and eight strikeouts, Flaherty had done enough, not only to earn Hinch’s confidence, but likely the confidence of evaluators around the league.

No, scouts weren’t packed behind home plate Friday; it’s still a bit early for that. But with the July 30 Trade Deadline just over a month away, they’re coming. Front offices are making their potential shopping lists, while teams on the fringe are weighing their positions.

Friday’s win moved Detroit within five and a half games of Minnesota for the final AL Wild Card spot. The Tigers still have time to close ground, but with a weekend series against the 20-57 Sox, the time is now to convince president of baseball operations Scott Harris that they can do it. The Tigers need to make a case that there’s enough promise for this year to at least keep the team together for the stretch run.

They need to be convincing, because a roster with several proven performers on short-term contracts presents some intriguing potential trade chips. None fit that better than Flaherty, whose bounce-back season has solidified him as a front-line starter again.

After going winless over his first eight starts as a Tiger, Flaherty (5-4) has won five of his last six outings since May 18. Friday marked his first win at Comerica Park, and his work almost single-handedly ended Detroit’s four-game losing streak behind Carson Kelly’s two-run homer off fellow potential trade chip Erick Fedde.

Former Cardinals teammate Tommy Pham’s home run ended Flaherty’s scoreless streak at 20 2/3 innings. With eight strikeouts and two walks, Flaherty saw his strikeout-to-walk (108-to-13) ratio drop from 9.09 to 8.31, still good for second among qualified Major League starters behind Seattle’s George Kirby. With a 2.92 ERA, he joined Mickey Lolich from 1969 as the only Tigers starter in history with at least 108 strikeouts and a sub-3.00 ERA through their first 14 starts in a season.

The highest strikeout-to-walk ratio from a qualified Tigers starter over a full season is 4.76 from Matthew Boyd in 2019. Whether Flaherty gets a chance to top that is iffy. The Tigers signed him last fall to a one-year, $14 million contract with the idea of helping him recapture his top form, a blueprint Detroit set last year with Michael Lorenzen before trading the All-Star at the deadline for infielder Hao-Yu Lee, currently Detroit’s No. 13 prospect.

However, Flaherty has performed well enough to make the case for another path, letting him play out the season and hit free agency before making a qualifying offer. If he were to sign a contract elsewhere worth more than $50 million, the Tigers would get a compensatory Draft pick. That creates a baseline for a potential return, and leverage for Harris in any talks with other clubs leading up to the deadline.

Flaherty is used to trade talk, having gone through the process with the Cardinals last summer. So it’s no surprise he continues to do his part and pitch stingy baseball.