The Detroit Tigers came into their series against the Boston Red Sox on a bit of a high note, having just won two straight at Comerica Park against the Texas Rangers which saw them score 21 runs after struggling heavily to move bodies across home plate. The two-game winning streak also coincided with the Major League Baseball debut of highly-touted prospect Riley Greene, who promised that the team would start winning games.
And while his promise held for the first two games of his young career, it wasn’t destined to last forever. The Tigers weren’t able to win a third straight game, falling Monday night at Fenway Park to the Red Sox by a 5-2 final score. The game featured the return to the lineup for Jeimer Candelario, who had been on the IL after having been injured while diving for a fly ball.
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Starter Alex Faedo surrendered five runs in 4 2/3 innings of work with two walks and two strikeouts. Meanwhile, Greene drew the 5th walk of his career and later scored on a sacrifice fly from Spencer Torkelson.
The Tigers couldn’t make it 3 straight wins
“Obviously, it’s an offensive ballpark. And we saw that from them, too. Our bats got a bit better as the game went on. We couldn’t get the ball off the ground, we couldn’t get a big hit. We chipped away, but had with some misfortune. At the end of the day, you have to play 27 outs….there’s a lot of key points in a 27 out game at Fenway.”
Hinch then gave his thoughts on the performance of Faedo.
“Just that he can make adjustments on the fly,” he said. “To me, this ballpark.. you need to start on top of everything. You need to make adjustments and pitches, you can get out of the game really quick in this ballpark. We can’t keep asking our bullpen to get 15-plus outs. We’re gonna drive those guys into the ground. Our starters have to go a little deep. There are some lessons that gotta be learned. … A lot of different decision points.”
The two teams will continue their series tonight with Game 2 at 7:10 PM EST, with Beau Brieske taking the mound for Detroit.
