Matthew Boyd had a bad day, but the Detroit Tigers’ absent offense ensured that it probably wouldn’t have mattered even if it had been perfect.
That was the sad reality of a rather bleak opening day in which the Tigers fell to the Cincinnati Reds 7-1.
The Tigers had just three hits and struck out 13 times against Reds starter Sonny Gray and three relievers.
Still, Boyd took responsibility for the loss.
“The game is on me, the starting pitcher,” he said. “Tonight is upon me, and I will improve on it.”
These are the conclusions of the first match.
1. It could have been worse.
Day 1 did not go well, but it could have been a disaster. It was not.
When Boyd allowed Cincinnati’s first six hitters to hit base, in one walk, two singles and two batting hitters, the Tigers bullpen began to get busy.
The Rule 5 draft pick, Ronny Garcia, who has never thrown over Double-A, was warming up, poised to make his major league debut in the first inning.
If Boyd had gone out without removing a batter, the Tigers would have conceded Opening Day before the first inning and would have been forced to improvise eight innings of work from a young bullpen.
It Didn’t Happen Boyd escaped the inning after allowing just two runs and settled to pitch five innings.
It won’t be his best job, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been either.
“It’s what Matty does,” said Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire. “Keep working, keep grinding. He is not happy with that, and he will tell him that he is not happy with that, but that we didn’t score too many runs for him. “
2. Ugly at bat.
Aside from CJ Cron’s gigantic home run, there was little offensive note for the Tigers on Friday night.
Several of the at-bats listened last year: sharp changes, ugly strikeouts.
Much of that had to do with Gray, who was adept at making hitters look silly by tempting them to hit balls out of the box. Most of his hits and misses were induced by speeding pitches. He got six on his slider and four on his curve.
Niko Goodrum struck out three times and landed on a double play. Jonathan Schoop, Christin Stewart and Austin Romine also had two strikeouts each.
3. It won’t be easier.
It could actually get more difficult.
Gray got the go-ahead on opening day because he’s a veteran coming from a season of stars, but the next two Reds starters the Tigers will face this weekend are just as good and possibly better.
Luis Castillo is one of the best young pitchers in baseball. Trevor Bauer is a former enemy of the Cleveland Tigers who moved to the southern tip of the state.
In this shortened season, each game counts almost three times as much as it would in a normal year, so the Tigers need to save a victory before escaping from Cincinnati.
“You have 60 games and we have to go out there and fight some really good baseball teams,” Gardenhire said.
4. Mixed relief bag.
It is too early to judge the Tigers’ relievers based on a job ticket, but José Cisnero and David McKay have had better days.
Cisnero was pumping 96 mph fastballs, but threw a walk to No. 9 hitter Curt Casali in the sixth inning when he should have saved the inning. Japanese star and Reds import Shogo Akiyama fouled on several pitches before recording his first major league hit. Cisnero only allowed one run, but a walk to the weakest hitter in a difficult lineup will haunt him.
David McKay, who pitched the seventh, looked like it could be a wire theft last year, but he had a couple of tough starts in summer camp and struggled on Friday. His fastball speed has dropped from 94-95 mph last summer to 91-92 mph on Friday. Of course, he is not the only one in the Tigers, or the MLB, who has lost some points in this unusual year, and will have more opportunities to head off in the coming days.
On a positive note, Gregory Soto and Buck Farmer retired the five batters they faced.
5. About that alignment.
The lineup the Tigers used in their final exhibition games was, in fact, the lineup Gardenhire used in Game 1.
Goodrum obviously didn’t have a day worthy of a leader, but he had shown greater patience and a willingness to work at the spring and summer camp.
Jonathan Schoop is perhaps a more curious option for the number 2 spot because, despite his power and production, he has always been a tall and relatively low guy in OBP. Even in what was a pretty solid offensive season a year ago in Minnesota, he had just a .304 percentage on base.
The Tigers are not packed with great options, which is probably how Schoop ended up on the spot. If Jeimer Candelario gets hot, he could be a good candidate because of his eye on the plate. In 2019, a horrible offensive season, Candelario’s .306 OBP was actually better than Schoop’s.
Gardenhire said he discussed the lineup with the club’s analysis department and “played with things” before settling for the top nine.
“We’ll see how it goes,” he said. “I think the most important thing for our offense and our lineup is that Candy has a good year. You need to step it up and do it. This is a great year for him. “
Candelario, who batted sixth between Christin Stewart and Cameron Maybin, went 0-for-3 in the first game.
6. A strange day.
The atmosphere at Great American Ballpark, CJ Cron said, was more appropriate for a “glorious spring game” with no fans in an empty stadium.
And yet it was real baseball, a game that really counted on the leaderboard, something that had been on hiatus for a long time.
So when Boyd said he wanted to “break through a brick wall” early in the game, no one doubted it.
“I miss that feeling,” he said. “I haven’t felt it in a long time. It is in those moments that you want to feed on that. ”
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