Fulmer battles again on road to TJ rebound 

Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire wanted badly to get Michael Fulmer through the third inning Saturday, enough that he left Fulmer in against left-handed hitter Nomar Mazara, who had been 5-for-11 against Fulmer, while Daniel Norris warmed. Fulmer had allowed eight White Sox hits and struggled with his breaking balls again, but was an out away from escaping with three runs allowed.

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“He's going to do this thing, and we're going to let him do it that way,” Gardenhire said. “That's what we're trying to do, and it's tough in these situations, but we talked about trying to get him through three innings and it didn't work out.”

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Mazara’s two-out, two-run double chased Fulmer with a five-run deficit and sent the Tigers on their way to a 14-0 loss to the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field. Considering Reynaldo López’s success against Detroit, the outcome was headed that way, but the Tigers’ fourth loss in five games marked their third blowout in four days. They’ve been outscored by a 52-11 margin in their last five games, their largest over a five-game span since June 17-21, 1953, according to baseball-reference.

Saturday's loss also dropped Detroit 4 1/2 games behind the Yankees for the eighth and final American League playoff spot.

This is the process the Tigers committed to with Fulmer when he returned from Tommy John surgery in Summer Camp. They knew the history of starting pitchers in their first season back from the elbow procedure; it’s how Tarik Skubal dropped from highly regarded prospect to a ninth-round pick in the 2018 MLB Draft. They also knew Fulmer’s lack of rehab assignment with no Minor League season available amplified the challenge.

Skubal worked in relief after signing with the Tigers in 2018. His breakout '19 season that vaulted him up prospect lists came in his second year back from surgery. Whether the 27-year-old Fulmer can experience anywhere near that kind of rebound is unclear, but the Tigers need to get him through the process one way or another to figure it out. He’s eligible for arbitration this coming offseason.

"That's the whole process: getting him in the rotation, working every five days unless there's days off and getting into a routine," Gardenhire said. "And even though it's only three innings, he's getting into a routine. Ultimately the goal is for him to be able to stretch out next Spring Training and get deeper into games if his body will let him."

That doesn’t make the process easy. Fulmer (0-2) has a 9.27 ERA in eight starts after Saturday’s defeat and has allowed 37 hits over 22 1/3 innings. The Tigers have limited him to three innings or 60-70 pitches a start so far, but Saturday marked the fourth time in eight starts he hasn’t completed the third.

“It's frustrating with the results,” Fulmer said. “I don't want to make any excuses, and I'm still not. I've had plenty of time to refine things and get back to normal and get back to my old self. Tonight was a lot better than any other start: felt better, pitches were moving a lot better, command was a lot better. But at the end of the day, this game is results-oriented, and obviously, I wasn't very good tonight.”

Fulmer’s struggle to find an effective, consistent breaking pitch has hampered him the past few starts, allowing opponents to center on his fastball. He threw 21 sliders out of 59 pitches in an effort to get it going, and threw some good ones for three swings and misses and three called strikes. He used a slider on a 2-0 pitch to get a Yasmani Grandal double play to escape a two-on, one-out jam in the second inning following a three-run first.

“Even after that three-run first inning, I thought I could give Gardy four or five innings tonight. I felt that good,” Fulmer said.

After a first-pitch slider for a called strike to Mazara in the third, Mazara waited on Fulmer’s sinker and got it on his 2-1 pitch. The resulting line drive had a 103.9 mph exit velocity -- one of four hits off Fulmer at 100 mph or harder -- and traveled to the fence in left-center to score José Abreu and Eloy Jiménez following their back-to-back singles leading off the third. Abreu, Jiménez and Tim Anderson had two hits each off Fulmer, part of Anderson’s 4-for-5 night to improve to 18-for-35 off Tigers pitching this season.

“Last start, I had one pitch work and that was the sinker, and it got hit because I only had one pitch I could throw for strikes,” Fulmer said. “Tonight was a little different story, where I felt like I had four pitches I could throw where I wanted to, command them well, and kind of just everything got hit. I think you just have to give credit to those guys.”