Cleveland – Jake Rogers lay splayed out face down at home plate. If this were a crime scene he would’ve been outlined in chalk.
In a way it was a crime scene.
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The Tigers’ catcher somehow turned a 261-foot bloop into shallow center field into a two-run, little-league homer, essentially stealing home, which helped kick start an 8-2 victory over the Central Division-leading Cleveland Guardians in the first of four at Progressive Field Monday night.
“That was awesome,” said Tigers’ All-Star lefty Tarik Skubal, who improved to 11-3 and lowered his ERA to 2.34 with seven gritty innings. “For him to be safe was even better. And then the starfish on the plate. Awesome.”
Rookie Justyn-Henry Malloy got the Tigers off and running with a two-run home run in the first inning off veteran right-hander Carlos Carrasco. It was his seventh homer, his fourth this month.
Then Rogers came to bat with Wenceel Perez at third and two outs in the second. Center fielder Angel Martinez made a diving attempt to catch his sinking soft liner. The ball got by him and then, once he ran it down, he slipped and fell and had to shovel the ball to right fielder Jhonkensy Noel.
“I knew it was going to be a triple because his back was turned,” Rogers said. “I was digging and I looked up and Joey was going nuts.”
Third base coach Joey Cora wasn’t going to let Rogers stop at third. Noel got the ball in quickly and shortstop Brayan Rocchio made a strong throw to the plate. The ball beat Rogers, but somehow, sliding head first, arms extended, he eluded the tag.
“I was giving it all I had,” Rogers said. “I was ‘scampering,’ as the boys like to call it when I run. As soon as I slid, I knew I was safe. I didn’t feel him tag me. When they reviewed it, I got a little worried. I was pretty sure I scored. I tried to get out of the way as best I could.”
The Guardians challenged the safe call, but it was upheld. The image of Rogers lying face down at the plate was priceless.
“I told the trainers we needed an oxygen mask for him,” Skubal said. “He went down the tunnel and I had the fan on him. I said, ‘Brother, you’ve got to breathe.”
The play was scored a triple and an error was assessed to Martinez, which Rogers disputes.
“Need to appeal that,” he said. “I didn’t see the play but I asked and I guess (Martinez) fell down and the right fielder threw it in. I don’t know if falling down is an error. It’s a homer to me.”
All that mattered, though, was the Tigers had staked Skubal to a four-run lead.
“Getting four runs in the first two innings, I can just go right at guys,” Skubal said. “Just try to keep the ball in yard. It’s tough to score a lot of runs going station to station.”
Skubal, even though he had to kick off some rust after not making a start since July 12 and gave up a career-high 10 hits, never let the Guardians get into the game.
“That’s a good team,” Skubal said. “They’ve got 59 wins for a reason. They don’t strike out a lot. They put the ball in play and they make things happen when they get guys in scoring position. It was my job to try to get them to hit it at guys at times and I think I did a good job of that.”
BOX SCORE: Tigers 8, Guardians 2
Eating the seven innings was vital with the Tigers deploying bullpen games Tuesday and Thursday in this series.
“They had a good plan against him, one through nine,” Rogers said. “They really did. But even when you have a good plan, it’s tough to string a lot of hits together and Skub did a really good job of getting soft contact and a double-play when he needed to.”
The Guardians appeared to be sitting Skubal’s changeup in certain counts. He got seven whiffs on 14 swings with it but they also had an average exit velocity of 92 mph on the six they put in play.
“They were going to take what they gave him,” manager AJ Hinch said. “If you look at those base hits that Tyler Freeman was getting (three of them), the (Jose) Ramirez hits, both to right and right-center, they made a full team commitment to not pull off the ball and let him utilize his changeup.
“That was as good an approach against Tarik as I’ve seen this year.”
Skubal struck out six, which is fewer than his norm, and got 15 misses on 54 swings, also fewer then his norm. But he won the big at-bats. He induced a 1-4-3 double-play to end the third, stranding two runners. He struck out Kwan to strand two in the fourth. He pitched around a leadoff double by Martinez in the fifth, striking out Jose Ramirez on three pitches.
The one run scored on a devious, two-out, bases-loaded bunt by catcher Austin Hedges in a laborious second inning that cost Skubal 28 pitches. But, even in that inning, he was able to fight out of a 2-0 hole against Steven Kwan and got him to pop out with the bases loaded to end the inning.
“I got myself in danger and for him to pop out, I felt like I gained a little momentum from that point on and was able to limit them to one run,” Skubal said. “But it was exhausting. Ten hits. I felt like every inning I was working out of the stretch. But that’s where the most important pitches are made, out of the stretch.”
Matt Vierling (two doubles) and Mark Canha each had three hits. Canha and Perez (two hits) hit back-to-back doubles to score a run and chase Carrasco in the sixth. Perez, who advanced to third on a throw to the plate, scored the sixth run on one of two sacrifice flies by Gio Urshela.
Rookie Colt Keith, who hit the ball hard three times with nothing to show, belted his 10th home run of the season in the ninth.
The Tigers (50-51) have taken four of the last five against the Guardians. They also have the best record in baseball in July (12-5).
“This is team baseball,” Skubal said. “We’re doing it all, playing good defense, getting timely offense and pitching well. It speaks to the guys in this room. Just a lot of guys buying in on winning every single day. And we look forward to doing it again tomorrow.”
@cmccosky
Daniel Miller is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. His coverage spans from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis for sports enthusiasts.
