'We're going to fight back': Tigers on the wrong end of chaos in Game 1

CLEVELAND -- Tigers manager A.J. Hinch was talking about the prep work that goes into pitching chaos Saturday morning before Game 1 of their AL Division Series when he mentioned the flip side.

“Not everything is perfectly as planned as you want it to be,” he said. “Somebody is going to punch you in the mouth at some point, and you gotta react.”

The Guardians delivered a punch to the Tigers a few hours later, and no strategy would change Detroit's fate during a 7-0 loss Saturday afternoon at Progressive Field. It’s up to the Tigers to react. Fortunately for them, they have a pretty good counterpunch with Tarik Skubal looming for Game 2 of the best-of-five series on Monday afternoon after an off-day Sunday.

“This is going to be a fight to the finish,” said Tyler Holton, whose latest opening assignment quickly went awry. “They landed a good first punch, but we're still standing, so we're going to fight back.”

The Tigers, whose pitching chaos worked splendidly during an AL Wild Card Series sweep of Houston to get them here, had it mapped out for Saturday: Holton for the dangerous top half of the Guardians' lineup, and then Reese Olson for Lane Thomas in the five-spot. Ideally, that would’ve come sometime in the second inning, just as his perfect first inning in Houston set up.

“What we really can choose is the first guy, when the first guy ends and the second guy,” Hinch explained beforehand. “And after that, we've gotta read the game, and depending on who that is, he has strengths or weaknesses or guys that we're going to try to exploit or guys that we're going to try to avoid him against.

“So you plan maybe the first few innings hoping that Holt goes three up, three down.”

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Holton has been the keystone of the Tigers’ versatile, vicious bullpen, consistently delivering outs in virtually every role possible. But from his first pitch Saturday, the path through the Guardians lineup had obstacles, laid by a tenacious group of Cleveland hitters.

“I felt good. I felt like I made some good pitches,” Holton said. “Clearly not enough good pitches. It's baseball, though.”

Holton’s second pitch of the day hit the right-field fence for a Steven Kwan double. He lost David Fry to a walk after the righty-hitting DH fouled off a pair of 3-2 pitches to continue the at-bat for José Ramírez.

“You're just trying to throw strikes, trying to get a strikeout, ground ball, double play, whatever you can do to help get out of that inning, slow the momentum,” Holton said. “But it didn’t go our way today.”

Holton thought he might have had the strikeout, but his 2-2 pitch to Ramírez at the bottom of the zone didn’t draw a call from plate umpire Adam Beck. His next pitch got a ground ball, but third baseman Zach McKinstry reacted to a hop and misplayed it down the line for what was initially ruled as a two-base error that scored one run and placed two more in scoring position, one of which scored on Josh Naylor’s ensuing RBI single. Major League Baseball changed the error to an RBI double on Sunday.

“I thought it took a weird hop and just tried to block it. That's all,” McKinstry said. “I was just trying to get in front of the ball.

“They watered the field when we came in to take ground balls, and they didn't water it for the game. So it just took a weird hop off the dirt the first kick.”

Olson had never inherited a baserunner in his Major League career, his rare relief appearances having started with clean innings. He knew he was coming in to face Thomas, but he didn’t know that would be with runners at the corners, two runs in and nobody out.

“It’s still the same game; I have to make pitches,” Olson said. “Didn’t execute the pitch that was called. Just hung a slider. In any situation, it’s going to get hit for a homer.”

Olson’s first competitive pitch since Sept. 26 landed in the left-field bleachers for a 5-0 lead. His awkward jump off the mound on Andrés Giménez’s ensuing infield single brought head athletic trainer Ryne Eubanks and Hinch out of the dugout, fearing a hamstring injury, but Olson was fine.

He allowed just two singles, one walk and a hit batter for the rest of his outing, ramping him up for a potential start or bulk appearance in Game 4, if necessary. But instead of setting up a procession of pitching like Wednesday’s series clincher in Houston, Olson ate innings ahead of Ty Madden, whose appearance fell apart with three walks and Fry’s two-out, two-run double to essentially put the game out of reach.

It was that kind of afternoon for Hinch and his strategic moves. Even in a seven-run game, he pulled off a double switch by using Justyn-Henry Malloy as a pinch-hitter for Parker Meadows to get Guardians manager Stephen Vogt to lift lefty reliever Tim Herrin. Vogt obliged, replacing Herrin with Hunter Gaddis. Hinch responded by replacing Malloy with another pinch-hitter, the switch-hitting Wenceel Pérez.

The flip got a favorable platoon matchup for Kerry Carpenter on deck. But after Pérez flew out, Gaddis got a double-play grounder from Carpenter. It was the correct move, but like much of what the Tigers tried Saturday, it didn’t work.

“We're going to see a lot of this bullpen, and the more looks you can get, the better,” Hinch said.

The Tigers got a good look at what they’re up against. Now they have to show what they’ve got.

“Hopefully keep them from scoring, and we need to score more than zero to win,” catcher Jake Rogers said. “It was just a tough day. That happens. It's baseball.”