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After yet another gut-wrenching loss in the first of two on Sunday, the Detroit Tigers and their fans really needed a win. They got it with some early offense and strong performances from Troy Melton, Tyler Holton, and Drew Anderson, who closed out a 4-1 victory with a nice six-out save.

Facing lefty Trevor Rogers, the Tigers started this one with a single from Matt Vierling. Kevin McGonigle followed with a grounder to first and Pete Alonso fired to second to get the lead runner but they couldn’t turn the double play. Dillon Dingler went down and launched a breaking ball high and deep over the left field wall, and it was 2-0 Tigers before a lot of fans found their seats. Riley Greene took a called strike three, and Jahmai Jones flew out to center field for the final out of the frame.

As uncertain as the Tigers future is right now, Troy Melton is going to be part of it, so it was great to see him back on the mound making his first start of the season. Melton had a minor elbow sprain early in spring camp and the Tigers immediately shut him down and took plenty of time to make sure he was 100 percent before letting him ramp up.

Melton got fly outs from Taylor Ward and Gunnar Henderson to begin his outing. He got into a 3-1 count against Adley Rutschman and challenged him with a 96.7 mph fastball. The Orioles catcher took a huge hack but Melton won out as he lifted a routine high fly to right field.

Spencer Torkelson and Hao-Yu Lee hit the ball hard in the second, but the Tigers went hitless. Kevin McGonigle made a nice pick on a hot Pete Alonso grounder to start the bottom half. Melton’s velo was very good early on. His command was a little rougher, and he left a splitter up against Samuel Basallo that was smoked into center for a one-out single. Leody Taveras grounded out, but Colton Cowser drew a walk on a 3-2 fastball that was initially called a strike but was challenged correctly. Blaze Alexander strafed a line drive that was heading down the left field line but Kevin McGonigle made a great leaping catch to prevent at least one run.

Melton was attacking the zone and looked 100 percent, but it was still his first start of the season and his command wasn’t real sharp in terms of the life on his stuff nor location early on. He also hasn’t thrown more than 65 pitches, and only got one rehab start in against Triple-A hitters, so it’s going to be a while before he’s up to full strength.

You’ll recall that Melton has always been a starter, but pitched in a mixed role last year and had a problem with his splitter against left-handed hitters. He has plenty of strengths in his fastball and breaking stuff to build from this season but getting that splitter dialed will be important.

Short, Vierling, and McGonigle all popped out in the top of the third. Melton jammed Jackson Holliday, who popped out, and Taylor Ward grounded out. A nasty fading splitter and then a 97.3 mph heater up and away dusted Gunnar Henderson for the third out of the third inning.

The Tigers went 1-2-3 in the fourth, with Jahmai Jones lining out to Holliday at second to end the top half. Emblematic of how his season has gone.

Melton started the fourth with a walk of Rutschman and then Alonso padded a grounder up the middle for a single to get Rutschman to third. He scored on a Samuel Basallo sacrifice fly to make it 2-1 Tigers. Melton blew Taveras away for his second strikeout, and so it was up to Cowser, who bounced out to Torkelson to end the inning.

Torkelson drew a walk to open the fifth inning. Wenceel Pérez showed bunt first pitch but pulled it back and took a ball. He tried again 1-1 and fouled it off to the first base side, then pulled a hard ground ball through the left side of the infield for a single. Lee flew out to center field, but not quite deep enough into this tiny outfield to get Torkelson to third. Rogers was really nibbling by this point and Short worked a full count and fought off a fastball before walking to load the bases with one out.

That brought the top of the order up, and if the Tigers were going to break this losing streak they needed to cash some of these chips with Vierling and McGonigle next up.

Rogers tied Vierling up and he popped out near the Orioles dugout, so it was up to the Kid, and the Kid came through. McGonigle got into a full count after Rogers started off ahead, and then rifled a single into center field to score Torkelson and Pérez. Short moved to third, and it was 4-1 Tigers.

That ended Rogers’ outing. Craig Albernaz turned to right-hander Andrew Kittredge instead, facing Dingler. McGonigle stole second base to get into scoring position without a throw. Kttredge bounced a slider on the eighth pitch of that at-bat, and the bases were loaded with two outs for Riley Greene. The Orioles pitching coach came out to chat with his pitcher, and let’s not forget the Orioles are struggling too.

Unfortunately, Greene got ahead 2-0 but swung at a sinker up on the outer edge and grounded out to first. I’ve mentioned this a few times, but one of the cascading effects of this misery is that the Tigers are rarely getting to a team’s worst relievers, which is where a lot of the addition run scoring and stat padding happens. They got a chance there and couldn’t capitalize. Would it cost them? Eh, probably considering how things are going.

Melton started the inning at 55 pitches. He got Alexander and Holliday to hit the ball to Pérez for a quick two outs. Taylor Ward popped out on a cutter, and we were on to the sixth with Melton looking as though he had at least another inning in him.

Right-hander Albert Suárez took over for the Orioles in the sixth. He used to be a sinkerballer but is now a mediocre, very fly ball prone pitcher who doesn’t strike many hitters out. Colt Keith took over for Jahmai Jones, hitting fifth. He flew out to right field and Torkelson followed suit. Pérez grounded out to shortstop, and now things would get very interesting.

Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Pete Alonso were due up for the third time against Melton, who started the inning at 65 pitches. If they could get through this inning and add on another run or two, that would probably be enough.

Henderson fought off a couple of tough two strike pitches, but a perfect back foot slider got the whiff. Melton missed with four straight to Rutschman as he looked to be running out of gas. That brought Alonso to the dish. Drew Anderson and Tyler Holton were warming at this point. Dingler went out to the mound, presumably to tell him this was his last batter and to just empty the tank. A slider got Alonso off balance and he lifted a pop fly to Pérez. That was it for Melton, and the Tigers couldn’t be happier with his first outing.

Melton’s final line was 5.2 IP, ER, 2 H, 3 BB, 3 K. Plenty to build on for the young right-hander, who isn’t much more than a rookie himself.

Holton took over to face the dangerous Samuel Basallo, and carved him up with a flurry of good sweepers to end the inning. Stiill 4-1 Tigers.

Suárez got Lee on a grounder to Holliday at second to open the seventh inning. Short followed with a single to right field to turn the lineup over, and Vierling dug into the box. He smoked a drive to the warning track in right center field but Taveras ran it down. McGonigle bounced out to first to send it to the bottom half.

Taveras put up a lengthy fight against Holton, but grounded out to Short for the first out. A nice changeup got a whiff from O’Neill, and Blaze Alexander flew out weakly to right field to end the inning.

While we begged for one more run, Dingler popped out and Greene grounded out to start the eighth. Colt Keith came through with a line drive single to right field and then took third as Torkelson followed suit with another lined single to right. Unfortunately, Pérez hit an opposite field fly ball out to Taylor Ward to end the two-out threat.

With Kyle Finnegan, Will Vest, and Kenley Jansen burnt for the day, Drew Anderson came on to pitch the bottom of the eighth. He got ahead of Holliday 0-2, but the young hitter worked back into a full count. A fastball up and in was pulled just foul with near home run distance, but a changeup down the middle induced a weak fly ball to center field. Ward followed with a flared single to right field. Henderson popped up on a changeup as well. Kick change, ftw. Anderson stayed on the attack against Rutschman, mixing mostly 96-97 mph fourseamers in between changeups, but after starting ahead, the Orioles catcher took some decent pitches to work it full. A filthy kick change that disappeared like a splitter drew a wild whiff to send this to the ninth.

The Tigers went in order quickly, and so it was up to Anderson to finally get the Tigers a win. It didn’t start well. He walked Alonso and Basallo both, but Fetter came out in pretty animated fashion. Presumably “throw #$%$#%# strikes!” was part of the message. Anderson rebounded by punching out Taveras and O’Neill. He got ahead of Alexander 1-2 and whiffed him on a nasty changeup that was foul tipped into Dingler’s glove.

Nice moxie from Anderson there. After a nice eighth, things looked sketchy after two walks to start the ninth, but he pulled it together to strike out the side as the Tigers snap an eight-game losing streak.

The Tigers are 21-33, and they’ll head home now for an off day before welcoming in the Los Angeles Angels for three on Tuesday. Suffice it to say, whatever slim hopes are left depend heavily on the Tigers ripping through numerous series victories in a row. Nothing for anyone, including the fans to do, but take it one game at a time.

I would’ve bet Kevin was the gene edited one in the family.

The mighty Casey may be fated to strike out sooner or later. Still, today was not that day, as Giants third baseman Casey Schmitt and first baseman Rafael Devers ran wild on Sox pitching this afternoon, driving in all eight San Francisco runs in the White Sox 8-5 loss to the Giants at Oracle Park.

It’s the second straight series loss for the Sox, who are back to .500 after a blissful week-and-a-half above the breakeven point. Fresh off the remarkable feat of allowing an entire grand slam within the first six pitches of the game, it looked like it was going to be another rough one for Robbie Ray when Chase Meidroth came out swinging for his second leadoff home run of the season.

Unfortunately, Noah Schultz once again struggled somewhat out of the gate, walking Willy Adames to open the game before back-to-back doubles from Schmitt and Rafael Devers made the Sox lead as short-lived as Arson Judge’s time with the Giants.

On a more promising note, Schultz did not offer up any more free passes after batter number one, which makes it just one walk over his last 43 batters. Although the results still aren’t there — Schultz did wind up getting tagged for six runs over four-plus innings — the sudden descent from the 17% walk rate he ran over his first five starts is probably a more important takeaway than the runs, or dearth of strikeouts. If Schultz can consistently throw strikes, he’s going to be effective. Point blank. He’s not there yet, but as long as he can continue avoiding free baserunners, the results are going to follow sooner or later.

Two more of those six earned runs came in the fourth inning, when Schmitt’s reign of terror hit its apex with a home run to bring San Francisco’s lead to 4-1.

Still, this White Sox team doesn’t quit. Before talking about what happened next, I want to be clear and say that, like the quintessential modern baseball fan, I am generally opposed to sacrifice bunts in the way they’ve been traditionally used. The LaRussa methodology, so to speak.

However.

I also believe there are still scenarios where it makes sense in context, even if it doesn’t. One of those contexts was the fifth inning today, when Tristan Peters was entrusted with no outs to lay down a bunt to move runners to second and third. Ordinarily, a questionable move when one is chasing a few runs. But consider this: Tristan Peters is better at bunting than he is at hitting for power, and the on-deck hitter, Luisangel Acuña, has been flat-out terrible at hitting all around this season.

Acuña hit a sacrifice fly before Chase Meidroth struck out to end the inning, which comes full circle on a successful sac bunt situation, if you ask me. The numbers say that neither Peters nor Acuña was terribly likely to get on base, much less notch an extra-base hit to drive those runners in. Considering how Peters and Jarred Kelenic swung them out of a first-and-second-with-less-than-two-outs situation a couple of innings later, I’m okay hedging for a single run when they would have been otherwise as likely as not to come away with nothing.

Though he avoided more grand slams, Robbie Ray still had a tenuous (at best) idea of where the ball was going this afternoon, racking up six walks before getting driven out of the game in the fifth inning. There was no single big hit that got the Sox back in the game, but a bases-loaded ground out by Colson Montgomery, followed by a single from Edgar Quero, was enough to knot things up at four.

This version of the comeback kids was sadly short-lived, as Schultz’s half of the fifth inning nearly mirrored Ray’s. A double and a hit batter to start the inning ended Schultz’s afternoon. Unlike the Sox offense, the up-to-this-point-struggling Rafael Devers took full advantage, becoming the first opposing batter in 56 career appearances to take Grant Taylor deep.

Taylor will now hold his place in history with the eighth-most games pitched to start a career without giving up a longball.

That was more or less it for the excitement in this one. Miguel Vargas did get a hold of one, his 12th of the year, so if nothing else, his All-Star campaign is still rolling strong despite an underwhelming road trip.

There wasn’t any action the rest of the way. Still, we did see some interesting bullpen usage from Will Venable, who curiously deployed Seranthony Domínguez in the seventh inning of a game in which he trailed by three runs. Between this and Grant Taylor’s save last Tuesday, Venable is giving us a bit more to think about at the back end of the bullpen moving forward. Domínguez’s appearance today was, to me, at least a little eyebrow-raising in tandem with Tyler Davis’s 1 2/3 IP appearance today, in which he once again looked all the part of a solid big league reliever.

There will surely be some noise about sending Schultz back down to Charlotte after this performance, but I’d be shocked to see him anywhere but the big league rotation the rest of the way. He’s got little left to prove in the minor leagues; if this front office has any real designs on competing in 2027 or 2028, then right now is the time to let Schultz get through his growing pains. Look at Davis Martin — these things simply take time, and while this unexpected spurt of competitiveness has been exciting, we shouldn’t forget that time is one thing the Sox do still have in their back pocket. For now, at least.

As my friend Sean Anderson likes to say, West Coast games don’t count, as far as I’m concerned. The Sox are back at home for Memorial Day tomorrow afternoon, when Sean Burke will take the mound on Meidroth’s bobblehead day against the Minnesota Twins. First pitch is at 1:10 p.m. CT, and we’ll see you there!