'Tremendous' Flaherty flirts with no-no during 9-K gem

BOSTON -- Jack Flaherty kicked off a four-game series against the Red Sox in style, tossing 6 2/3 innings of one-hit ball as his teammates backed him during a 5-0 Tigers victory at Fenway Park on Thursday night.

The Tigers starter, who admitted that his slider was not working for him, retired the first 12 batters he faced before he allowed a walk to Rafael Devers to lead off the fifth inning.

Growing stronger as the game progressed, Flaherty locked back in after issuing the free pass, striking out the next two batters and eliminating another seven in a row.

“I didn’t feel like I had any command over [my slider],” Flaherty said. “... Keep making pitches, keep going and hope that as the game goes on, you start to find it. I found a couple of good sliders there, found some fastballs that we were able to use at the top of the zone.”

Flaherty struck out the first batter he faced in the top of the seventh, but Rob Refsnyder came up next and battled the right-hander during a nine-pitch at-bat that ended with a single into left field that snuck past the outstretched glove of a diving Javier Báez at shortstop.

“He was pitching well, locating his fastball,” Refsnyder noted. “He’s got natural cut on his fastball. It’s pretty explosive. Little bit lower arm slot, so it’s hard to get on top of it. His curveball is sharp.”

Flaherty remained in the game and coaxed Rafael Devers to fly out to right on his 104th pitch, which brought manager A.J. Hinch to the hill to relieve his starter.

“I went out there to talk to him and tell him why I was taking him out. It wasn’t a debate. With where he was at, he had relatively smooth innings. … I wanted to tell him he did a hell of a job and did all he needed to.”

“The intent that [Flaherty] has, you can just see it build,” catcher Carson Kelly said. “He kept getting better and better and better. Location was getting better, dotting his heater down and away, command of all his pitches. I thought he did a tremendous job.”

Detroit's offense was up against a similar challenge early on, unable to get any hits through the first four innings, a stretch that saw eight straight batters strike out against Red Sox starter Nick Pivetta.

“[Pivetta] never conceded anything good to hit,” Hinch said. “A couple of our righties were saying it was starting at them and then finishing off the plate. That’s incredible movement.”

Akil Baddoo got the Tigers on the board with a solo home run in the fifth inning, the first hit of the night, into the Green Monster seats. It marked Baddoo's first long ball since Sept. 26 of last season.

Riley Greene added a two-run homer in the eighth inning, his 10th home run of the season, and Gio Urshela later hit his first, a solo shot, to put Boston at arm’s length.

Flaherty, who moved to 2-4 on the year with the win, finished his night with nine strikeouts, giving him 90 on the year, tops in the American League. He trails only the Dodgers' Tyler Glasnow, who leads MLB with 95 punchouts.

Flaherty also became the 13th Detroit pitcher to strike out at least nine in three consecutive games and the first since teammate Tarik Skubal completed the feat from Sept. 9-21, 2023.

“This might be [Flaherty's] best game, just given the ballpark, given the atmosphere and the variety of pitches that he needed to throw,” Hinch said.

“You just want to go out and execute and give your team a chance to win,” Flaherty said. “It feels good to be able to go out and give a chance to win every time you go out. That’s all I’m trying to do.”