Tigers vs Brewers; April 21-23

The Den
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On deck: Milwaukee Brewers

:play_button: Series: Three games, Tuesday-Thursday, Comerica Park, Detroit

:play_button: First pitch: 6:40 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday, 6:40 p.m., 1:10 p.m. Thursday

:play_button: TV/radio: Detroit SportsNet/97.1

:play_button: Series probables: Tuesday — LHP Kyle Harrison (1-1, 3.07 ERA) vs RHP Keider Montero (1-1, 3.31); Wednesday — RHP Chad Patrick (1-0, 0.95) vs. RHP Casey Mize (1-1, 2.78); Thursday — RHP Brandon Sproat (0-1, 6.88) vs. LHP Tarik Skubal (3-2, 2.08)

Scouting report

:play_button: Harrison, Brewers: Formerly a top pitching prospect in the San Francisco Giants organization, Harrison brings a hard fastball — tops out around 96 — with run that he complements with a sharp slider. And all this comes from a lowered arm slot to make things that much more deceptive. He hasn’t been dominant in 2026 in a handful of starts, but the stuff is very real with his top two pitches.

:play_button: Montero, Tigers: Montero has basically been the sixth man for Detroit’s pitching rotation for the better part of the last season and change. He dazzled with his best start of the season in a win versus Miami last weekend and pitched through some traffic for a win against Kansas City last week. The Tigers see potential in Montero and when his mix of five pitches are working, it’s easy to see why.

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Tigers’ ABS tracker

:play_button: Hitter challenges: 13-for-29

:play_button: Catcher/pitcher challenges: 13-for-16

Tigers’ uniform tracker

:play_button: Traditional home whites: 7-1

:play_button: Alternate home oranges: 1-0

:play_button: Traditional road grays: 4-6

:play_button: Alternate road blues: 0-4

http://archive.today/vzBUv

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Spencer Torkelson rides bench as struggles continue for Tigers slugger

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Here’s the primary issue: Torkelson is swinging just 36.7% of the time this season, down from 44.6% last season – and his first-pitch swing rate has dropped to 13.6% from 31.5%. (The secondary issue: He has produced minus-2 defensive runs saved in 175⅔ innings at first base.)

The passive approach has improved his plate discipline.

His chase rate is down to 16.4% (98th percentile) and his walk rate is up to 17.3% (93rd percentile), but he is still striking out at a career-worst 28.4% clip (23rd percentile) – and when he does swing, he isn’t doing damage. He has a career-worst 88.9 mph average exit velocity (41st percentile).

Torkelson probably needs to be more aggressive.

“He’s been pretty patient or passive, whichever way you want to look at it, on pitches,” Hinch said. “Find a happy medium on how aggressive to be and continue to get good pitches to hit, then it just comes down to execution.”

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Torkelson is stuck in an 0-for-11 slump with one walk and four strikeouts over his past 12 plate appearances. The 26-year-old has a .182 batting average with a .561 OPS in 21 games during the 2026 season.

“It’s a tough sport," manager A.J. Hinch said before Sunday’s 6-2 win, in which Torkelson went 0-for-3 with one walk and one strikeout in three trips to the plate. “You go through these stretches where, when you want to be patient, you fall behind, and when you try to be aggressive, you swing out of the zone a little bit.”

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“This is a tough sport mentally to get started in a season like this for him, but it doesn’t mean it’s not in there,” Hinch said. “It doesn’t mean that he can’t have a good day. One or two good things go his way, you can see him take off.”

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https://x.com/JohnKeatingTV/status/2046544913756475701?s=20

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Brewers hope they can win game 1 because games 2 and 3 will be really tough with Mize/Skubal

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The Brewers can really hit though. They’re a tough team to play against. Turang and Contreras are both really good, and they’ve got plenty of guys who can run and make good contact.

They’ll be a tough matchup for us like they are for pretty much everyone.

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Tork is just SO un-natural looking as a baseball player. Rigid, robotic, absolutely no flow in his swing, in his approach. There is so so so much Marcel Ozuna or Giancarlo Stanton about him….but those guys are bigger.

Tork has a really high hard hit %, but a crap barrell rate, so his swing path is garbage. The problem with that is he seems to be very slow in being able to translate adjustments to production and maybe that’s what’s going on right now but this goes back to his robotic look and feel.

I almost wish McGonigle or Clark would be able to be guys that somehow get in his head about being looser as a swing and as a person and maybe unlock something in between his ears cuz that’s where the problem is with this guy. He’s got the physical Talent to keep up the 30 home run power for another 5 years easy maybe more but for whatever reason dude just looks like he’s fighting himself all the time

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Agreed.

I really thought he was going to struggle to make the club last year based on discussions with others. But he changed his habits for the first time which gave me hope for his future. Now, still time, but back to doubting again

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Oh i know they are a team that can hit Im just saying if they really want to hit game 1 would be the one because Mize is pitching great and so is Skub

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I find it so interesting that he’s one of the best guys in the league when it comes to taking walks and not chasing pitches, but I agree he needs to make adjustments to his swing. He’s CLEARLY seeing the pitches well, he just needs to make solid contact when he sees something to hit.

A guy with that plate discipline and that set of physical tools should be able to make whatever adjustment he needs to.

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I will add to above comments that he had some really bad luck early on in the season.

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He has, like incredibly bad.

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I agree with you 100%. Montero has been pitching lights out too. I wonder what will happen when Verlander comes back. Maybe a 6 man rotation?

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Montero to bullpen to replace the anderson/holton spot

Or the crazy Flaherty to bullpen

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Holton isn’t going anywhere. I would love to see Anderson go but not sure they are willing to do that yet.

I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if they sent him back to AAA so he can keep on the five day schedule.

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Holton can go if he keeps up what he did the last week 3 IP 5 H 4 ER 1 HR 1 Hold 1 BS 1 Loss 2 walks 3 strikeouts

Dont get me wrong it will be Anderson gone first but Holton if he keeps it up he can be done too

Drew is 1.2 IP 5 hits 5 ER 0 HR Not good at all

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If you get rid of Holton you won’t just find another lefty who you can use in higher leverage situations like him.

I wanted us to pursue a high leverage lefty reliever this past offseason because Holton can be inconsistent at times.

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Last year 6 blown saves and 6 losses

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BS and L happen for middle relievers often in the same game. 6 BS isn’t out of line for a 6th-8th inning guy with matchup based usage.

For comparison, a good closer will blow 12% of his save chances. 5 out of 40.

For 2025

Game log says 70 appearances, 46 clean 24 with runs. Now, that doesn’t always.tell the story about inherited runners though. He inherited 41 runners, 9 scored. His leverage index was 1.74, where 1 is league average for all relievers, so above average, but not closer leverage (3+)

Ended the season at 11 runs saved above average (kind of like defensive runs saved abive average) so pretty good.

He is a guy with a good amount of value, and right now, he is a but bumpy.

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pretty good parting gift by Al Avila

https://x.com/bythewaybro/status/2046617729650638983?s=20