First pitch: Tuesday-Wednesday — 6:40 p.m.; Thursday — 1:10 p.m.
TV/radio: All games on FDSN/97.1
Probables:Tuesday — LHP Bailey Falter (5-3, 3.36) vs. RHP Casey Mize (6-2, 2.95); Wednesday — LHP Andrew Heaney (3-5, 3.33) vs. LHP Tarik Skubal (7-2, 1.99); Thursday — RHP Paul Skenes (4-6, 1.78) vs. TBA
Falter, Pirates: He’s 4-0 with a 1.61 ERA in his last eight starts. He pitches off high-extension (7 feet, 2 inches) four-seam and two-seam fastballs that play above the 92-mph average velocity. His plus-11 run value on fastballs is in the top 93 percentile in baseball. He mixes sliders, curveballs and splitters off the fastballs. Left-handed hitters have been more productive against him than righties (hitting .311 with an .817 OPS) this season.
Mize, Tigers: He ended up taking the loss in Baltimore (though the only real damage was a two-run homer by Ramon Urias), but his stuff was as good as it’s been since he came off the IL three starts ago. He was throwing his splitter between 89 and 91 mph with late movement and his four-seam was ringing between 95.6 and 97 mph with good ride through the zone. He ended up with seven strikeouts in 5⅓ innings.
Exactly. Keep Cruz to singles and not much wattage the rest of the way in the lineup.
Falter has been nails for about 4 weeks now. Wonder if Hinch will play to Falter’s reverse split and start the Carpenter/Keith lefty lineup, whixh would stay in againt their mostly rh pen.
Skenes’ run suppoet has been 1.8 runs a game in his 8nstarts they lost, 3.35 runs overall, with 1/4 of them in one game.
They can beat Skenes if Pitching Chaos keeps it under wraps.
Its probably the worst offense in MLB, bottom 3 for sure.
■■■■ the Rays… Every year I say this is the year they lose 90 games and every year they exceed expectations in a real tough division. They absolutely own my Jays and I’m bitter about it. Spend no money, are playing in a AAA stadium that belongs to the Yanks and yet if the playoffs started tomorrow the Rays are in it again.
No idea if this is accurate… But over the last 20 years I bet the Rays have one of the best records in MLB spending peanuts. Impressive and annoying. @HSVLion use AI to figure that one out for me.
As if being in the same division with the Yanks and Red Sox wasn’t enough punishment for your Jays.
One of the things I really liked when Harris came on board was he hired two guys to lead development/draft from the Dodgers and Rays. I mean it makes sense with their history to hire from those two teams.
Series: Three games at Comerica Park, Detroit
