DETROIT – Brant Hurter was surfing.
Having entered the game in the second inning in relief of fellow rookie Keider Montero, the 26-year-old left-hander had sailed more than three frames in the early stages of Detroit’s 3-0 win over Cleveland in Game 3 of the ALDS. without many problems. . The Tigers hitters had provided a pair of runs of support, extending the leash for manager AJ Hinch to allow Hurter to get as many outs as possible before making another call to the bullpen.
But in the top of the fifth, Cleveland had something brewing. After Hurter retired catcher Bo Naylor for the first out, No. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio and leadoff hitter Steven Kwan had consecutive base hits. The left-handed Hurter seemed to be a favorable matchup against Cleveland’s pesky leadoff hitter, but Kwan ruined that strategy.
“Not everything is as perfect as you want it to be,” Hinch said before this series when asked about his mantra for managing postseason games. “At some point someone is going to punch you in the mouth and you have to react.”
Hinch paused and then continued: “That’s why we have Beau Brieske.”
It was a well-delivered line that drew laughter from the room at the time, but it was rooted in cold truth: time and time again, when things start to go wrong, Hinch turns to Brieske.
So when Hurter found himself in trouble in the fifth inning Wednesday, Hinch knew exactly who to call.
With David Fry scheduled to hit and the always dangerous José Ramírez on deck after that, Brieske trotted in from the bullpen to put out another fire. It took him four pitches to get rid of Fry, a quick at-bat punctuated by a nasty slider for a third strike.
“Beau occupies a really important place. “In a perfect world, I would love to bring in these guys, clean innings, big lead, deep breathing and attacking guys they can match up with, and that never happens, especially in October,” the Tigers captain said after the game. “So throwing strikes is key. Be at your best from the first pitch.”
Brieske then relied on his changeup to neutralize Ramirez, who flied out harmlessly to center field to end the inning.
“You see the speed increase. You see the execution of great pitches to get the first batter out,” Hinch said afterward. “And our guys understand that they are in that position because every person who wears the English D knows they can do the job and continue to respond.”
Brieske wasn’t finished either. He returned for the sixth inning and set Cleveland’s 4-5-6 hitters in order. He emerged again for the seventh, adding one more hit before departing to a raucous ovation from a crowd of 44,885 at Comerica Park, the largest attendance for a postseason game in the stadium’s history, loving every second of his first playoff game. in a decade.
“He’s got great stuff. He’s got four good pitches,” catcher Jake Rogers told Yahoo Sports. “You have an electric heater that has a very good vert, and it’s hard to reach. And then you have a sinker to maintain.” honest righties and a changeup to keep both righties and lefties honest. It’s a complete mix, and he throws 98, and it’s that mentality that we preach, like, hey, just throw strikes and your stuff will get outs.”
In fact: That’s why the Tigers have Beau Brieske. It was his fourth appearance in October and he has yet to allow a hit.
Not bad for a 29th round pick from a Division II school.
Brieske and Hurter were the main stars of Detroit’s last postseason victory, fueled by an unpredictably deployed pitching staff. Montero was announced as the starting pitcher on Wednesday morning, and considering his admirable performance in a rotation role for the Tigers in the second half, he seemed primed to give Detroit some length from the start of the game.
But as with any Tigers game not started by Tarik Skubal, there’s no way to really know which pitcher Hinch will lean on the most until the game actually unfolds. In this case, it was Hurter who emerged as the so-called “big man” after Montero completed a scoreless first inning on just six pitches.
It’s a role Hurter filled well in the regular season, compiling a 2.58 ERA in 45 1/3 innings over 10 games despite starting only one of them. When Detroit he almost threw a combined no-hitter against the Orioles in September, it was Hurter who recorded 17 of the 27 putouts in the middle innings. In his postseason debut against the Astros, he recorded five outs as one of seven Tigers pitchers in Detroit’s Game 2 pitching chaos masterclass.
On Wednesday, Hurter served as a bridge to Brieske and beyond as the Tigers’ bullpen showed its strength once again.
“He is modern. Even for right-handers, it’s tough,” Rogers said. “I can’t even imagine being left-footed in the box. “Sometimes it’s hard to catch, and when it’s hard to catch, it’s hard to hit.”
Hinch offered: “I mean, obviously, with this kind of strategy that we have, we can give different looks to different guys. You’ve got a 6-foot-6 lefty (in Hurter) to some fireball righties and (Tyler) Holton throwing backdoor cutters to Brieske throwing turbo sinkers and changeups.”
In the seventh, it was Will Vest’s turn to stop a Cleveland rally. With two outs and runners on first and second, he came in to face Fry. Vest unleashed six 97-98 mph heaters, the last of which Fry hit for a hard liner to third base, only to see Vierling jump in to end the frame. It was that kind of day for the Guardians’ offense, a continuation of a frustrating stretch at the plate that has Cleveland’s season on the brink of elimination.
Since bursting out of the gate for five runs before recording one out in Game 1, Cleveland’s bats have gone cold. The Guardians have scored just two runs in their last 26 innings, both in the sixth inning of Game 1. It’s particularly troubling deja vu considering the Guardians’ similar struggles during their most recent postseason appearance in 2022. But this drought has reached levels of offensive ineptitude never before anticipated: it is the first time in franchise history that Cleveland has been shut out in consecutive postseason games.
Detroit’s lineup wasn’t especially explosive on Wednesday (Cleveland actually outscored Detroit 6-5), but the hits were much more timely. Unlike Game 2, when a 0-0 tie stretched into the ninth inning until Kerry Carpenter’s epic swing against Emmanuel Clase, Detroit didn’t wait to give its pitching staff some run support. Riley Greene provided a quick jolt in the bottom of the first with a hit up the middle to score Parker Meadows, who led off the game with a single.
It was Greene’s first RBI this postseason, perhaps a sign of things to come for the 24-year-old, whose rise from promising prospect to full-blown All-Star has been a pivotal development in Detroit’s rise.
“He was under a lot of pressure at times this season, being the guy that every other manager was going up against,” Hinch said of Greene before Game 3. “They would bring in their best relievers, they would bring in their lefty, they would bring in whoever they could to deal with Riley, while the rest of the lineup tried to figure it out. He didn’t change. He didn’t panic. He didn’t get stressed. He just tried to do his part.
“He’s one of the first guys I met when I got the job because I knew, as the organization had told me, that he was a central part of what was going to go well in the future, and they were absolutely right.”
Vierling scored a second run with a sacrifice fly in the third inning. Spencer Torkelson doubled to left field to score Detroit’s third run in the sixth, a welcome sight after the former No. 1 pick began his first October going 0 for 14 with nine strikeouts. It wasn’t much, but Detroit has proven it can win games with a well-sequenced attack rather than an overwhelming offensive display. Cleveland’s lineup did the same over the course of the regular season, but failed to do so as the stakes increased. That’s a trend that will need to be reversed quickly if the Guardians want to take this series to a Game 5 at home.
On Thursday, in Game 4, it will be Tanner Bibee who will take the ball for Cleveland, but even a strong effort from the right-hander could prove futile if the bats don’t wake up. Detroit, meanwhile, will once again deploy an undetermined sequence of weapons. That’s how they like it.
The Tigers are one win away from the American League Championship Series and have a chance to punch their ticket to the next round at home on Thursday. For Rogers, the Tigers’ longest-tenured player and the only one remaining from the 2019 team that lost 114 games, Game 3 was a tremendous validation of what Comerica Park can offer as a postseason venue.
“It was amazing, man,” he said. “I grabbed Holton after the game when he was on the mound and said, ‘Man, get into this.’ This doesn’t happen very often and it’s really cool to see and hear the sights and sounds…
“(The fans) made noise and did what they had to do. “They want to see playoff baseball here and we brought them a good game.”
