Olson's gem rewarded as historic winless streak ends

DETROIT -- Reese Olson never made a big deal about his winless start to the season. Still, as he walked off the mound in the seventh inning of Saturday’s 2-1 victory over the Blue Jays, the combination of numbers were startling.

With no earned runs over 6 1/3 innings, Olson lowered his ERA to 1.92, fifth lowest in the Majors as of Saturday afternoon. Yet until Tyler Holton fanned Danny Jansen to strand the potential tying run on third and finish off the save, Olson was 0-5 this year. He hadn’t picked up a victory since last Sept. 20 at Dodger Stadium.

No, the Tigers didn’t save the game ball for Olson, who won five games as a rookie last year. But they still had fun with it.

“We were giving him a hard time,” catcher Jake Rogers said. “We got [Jack Flaherty] one, so we were trying a big deal of trying to get him a win. He was giving us a hard time, and we were giving him a hard time.”

That sense of humor is hidden in Olson’s steady demeanor.

“Obviously it’s good to get a win,” Olson said, “but I didn’t worry about it. I just try to do my job every time I go out there.”

Beyond wins and losses, Olson has quietly been exemplary at his job. He’s the second Tiger to post a sub-2.00 ERA and allow 40 or fewer hits over his first 10 starts to a season, joining Tom Timmermann in 1972. He ranks among the AL’s top five in home run rate (second at 0.16 per nine innings), ERA (second to Kansas City’s Seth Lugo), slugging percentage (third at .256), OPS (fourth at .527) and batting average (fifth at .197).

Olson also has the lowest run support in the Majors, which is why it took this long to get him a win. Detroit had scored just 20 runs in his previous nine starts, the lowest average run support in the Majors for pitchers with at least seven starts this season. When Kerry Carpenter sent a José Berríos changeup deep to right for his second home run in as many games and his eighth of the year, the resulting two-run lead matched Olson’s largest of the season.

The Tigers put just two other runners in scoring position for the game, yet Olson made it stand against a Blue Jays lineup stacked with eight right-handed hitters to try to exploit Olson’s reverse splits (right-handed hitters were batting .296 off him entering Saturday, compared to lefties at .131) and neutralize Olson’s devastating changeup (.147 batting average allowed, 47.1 percent whiff rate).

The flip side to that righty-heavy approach is that it allows Olson to unleash his high-spin slider, his devastating out pitch from last year. Opponents entered Saturday hitting just .135 against it this season with a 40.4 percent whiff rate and a nine-degree launch angle. So even when opponents put it in play, soft contact usually follows.

“The airbender,” Rogers joked.

Olson and Rogers mixed approaches in clinical fashion Saturday. Olson induced 11 ground-ball outs. Yet when Olson needed strikeouts, the changeup was there for them -- three of his four strikeouts came with runners in scoring position.

“He can do a lot of things and give a lot of different looks,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “And when you see the awkward takes and the head shakes from the hitters, and you see balls in play on the ground with multiple pitches, that’s telling me that he’s disrupting timing.”

When Kevin Kiermaier, the lone left-handed hitter in Toronto’s lineup, tripled with one out in the third inning, Olson used sinkers to set up Davis Schneider to whiff on the changeup, removing the sacrifice fly possibility. When Schneider’s two-out walk loaded the bases in the fifth, Olson pulled the string again to fan Justin Turner on a changeup.

Olson induced just eight swinging strikes for the game, but he made them count. Meanwhile, he drew 22 called strikes, all but one of them on fastballs, sinkers and sliders.

“Attack the zone and use all four pitches, that was the primary goal,” Rogers said. “Honestly, we were going to use a few more curveballs, I think, and we ended up not.”

The way Olson has pitched this season, he didn’t need individual wins to be labeled a winner.

“He’s going to make you beat him,” Hinch said. “He’s not going to concede with any pitch.”