00:00Tigers fans, let's dive into a wild night at Great American Ballpark, a game that felt like two entirely different
00:06contests, separated by a rain delay and some fireworks nobody expected to hear until after the final out.
00:12The Tigers were in the visitors' clubhouse, passing the time with crossword puzzles, cards, and watching other games on TV
00:19as they waited for their own to restart, then, booming sounds rolled in from the field.
00:24It wasn't thunder, it was the scheduled post-game fireworks launched early during the rain delay to beat a midnight
00:31noise curfew.
00:32We heard the fireworks which was kind of crazy, Carey Carpenter said, in-game fireworks.
00:37What seemed like an anomaly quickly turned into an omen.
00:41Before the delay, the Tigers and Reds combined for eight runs over six innings, and after it, they exploded for
00:48nine runs in the final three frames, including seven that came on home runs.
00:52The lead changed hands three times, as Kenley Jansen put it, like trying to stop a train on either side.
00:58Then came the final swing, and Nathaniel Lowe destroyed a walk-off two-run homer off Jansen, sending it into
01:05the third row of seats in right-center field.
01:12I'll buy him well beyond Carpenter's leaping try at the wall, and the Reds still had a few minutes to
01:18spare before curfew, and their celebratory fireworks erupted in rounds as thunderous as the gut punch the Tigers absorbed in
01:26a 9-8 loss, a game they once led by five runs.
01:30Long day, manager A.J. Hinch said.
01:33A long day and a loss.
01:35We were in a position to win it a couple different times, but the game turned in so many different
01:40directions, and they got the last swing.
01:47Two different games, one before the delay, one after the delay.
01:51One common thread held it all together.
01:54The Tigers' offense is heating up, powered by the big bats you'd expect.
01:57Riley Green opened the scoring with a second-inning homer, his second in as many days, both on breaking balls
02:04at or below the bottom of the strike zone.
02:06Entering Friday, Green owned the steepest swing-path tilt in baseball among qualified MLB hitters at 43 degrees according to
02:13StatCast, even that isn't as steep as his 45-degree tilt from last year, which also led the majors.
02:19That angle feasts on breaking pitches, last season he slugged 550 against them with 12 homers, and a 91.7
02:26mph average exit velocity, it came with a 39.8% whiff rate, but when he connected, he hit breaking
02:33balls harder on average than fastballs.
02:35In a smaller sample entering Friday, Green was crushing breaking balls at a boss.
02:40407 average with an even higher average exit velocity, 92.1 per dock than last year, while dropping that whiff
02:47rate.
02:48Spencer Torkelson launched his third home run in as many games, his longest homer streak since his sophomore season at
02:54Arizona State in 2019, and after nearly four homer-less weeks to open this season, this one was his most
03:02massive in both distance and destruction.
03:04A 435-foot drive that clanked off near-empty seats in the left field upper deck, and the echoes bounced
03:11around the ballpark, and into the Tigers' dugout, where the frustration of a blown five-run lead quickly turned into
03:17determination to play through all 27 outs.
03:20Torque looks awesome.
03:22Riley's been awesome for a couple weeks now, Carpenter said.
03:25I feel pretty good up there too.
03:27I think that we're getting hot at the right time.
03:29I mean, Torque getting hot is huge for us.
03:32He gets really hot with the best of them.
03:34Three batters later, Carpenter struck for his second homer in three days.
03:38A go-ahead, two-run, two-out shot on a first-pitch fastball from Tony Santalon, and Santalon hadn't allowed
03:45a run in ten and two-thirds innings this season before Torkelson took him deep, and Carpenter knew it immediately.
03:50He was grinning before the ball landed in the seats next to a dejected Reds fan.
03:55He's got a really good up-shoot fastball and gets above barrels a lot, Carpenter said.
04:00I think we were all kind of just on the heater.
04:02I think most of us are always on the heater anyways.
04:05This was the right ballpark for that approach.
04:07Obviously in this ballpark you're never out of it, Hinch said.
04:10You also never have a comfortable lead.
04:13That lead felt especially shaky because Tigers pitchers battled the strike zone all night, issuing six walks, five of them
04:20from an uncharacteristically wild Frambois Valdez.
04:23But if they can settle down the bullpen pecking order and get the late innings in line, they have an
04:28offense that looks on the verge of a breakout after an up-and-down start to the season.
04:32Only two strikes away, man, Jansen said.
04:35They played a great game.
04:37I just have to let it go.
04:38The beauty of it is there's another day tomorrow.
04:41So after a rollercoaster like that, where do you stand?
04:44Do you trust that this heating-up offense can carry the Tigers through the bullpen's ups and downs,
04:49or is the ninth-inning reliability still the biggest question mark hanging over this team?
04:54I'd love to hear your take.
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