DETROIT – Brant Hurter was cruising.
After entering the game in the second inning in relief of fellow rookie Keider Montero, the 26-year-old southpaw had more than three without much trouble in the early stages of Detroit’s 3-0 win over Cleveland in Game 3 of the ALDS. frames navigated. on Wednesday afternoon. The Tigers’ hitters had put in a pair of runs, extending the line for manager AJ Hinch to let Hurter rack up as many outs as possible before making another call to the bullpen.
But in the top of the fifth, Cleveland had something cooking. After Hurter retired catcher Bo Naylor for the first out, No. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio and leadoff man Steven Kwan collected consecutive singles. The lefty Hurter appeared to be a favorable matchup against Cleveland’s pesky leadoff man, but Kwan ruined that strategy.
“Not everything is as perfect as you would like it to be,” Hinch said ahead of this series when asked about his mantra for managing post-season games. “Someone is going to punch you in the mouth at some point, and you have to respond.”
Hinch paused for a moment and then offered this follow-up: “That’s why we have Beau Brieske.”
It was a well-delivered line that brought laughter to the room at the time, but was rooted in a stone-cold truth: time and time again, when things start to go sideways, Hinch turns to Brieske.
So when Hurter got into trouble in the fifth inning on Wednesday, Hinch knew exactly who to call.
With David Fry scheduled to hit and then the always dangerous José Ramírez on deck, Brieske trotted in from the bullpen to put out another fire. It took four pitches before he could dispose of Fry, a quick at-bat punctuated by a nasty slider that set up a swinging strike three.
“Beau comes in in a very big place. In a perfect world I’d love to bring these guys in, with a clean inning, a big lead, a deep breath and attacking guys they can match up with – and that never happens, especially not in October,” the Tigers skipper said after the match . “So strike throwing is the key. Be at your best from the first pitch.”
Brieske then relied on his substitution to neutralize Ramírez, who flied harmlessly to center field to end the frame.
“You see the speed increasing. You see the execution of big pitches to get the first batter out,” Hinch said afterward. “And our guys understand that they’ve been put in that position because anyone who wears the England D knows they can get the job done, and they keep responding.”
Brieske wasn’t done yet either. He returned for the sixth inning and retired Cleveland’s 4-5-6 batters. He emerged again for the seventh and added another punchout before leaving to a raucous ovation from 44,885 people at Comerica Park – the largest attendance for a postseason game in ballpark history – which captured every second of his first playoff competition in ten years.
“He’s got great stuff. He’s got four good pitches,” catcher Jake Rogers told Yahoo Sports. “He’s got an electric heater that’s got a really good look, and that’s hard to catch up on. And then he’s got a sinker to keep.” Judges honest and a change to keep both rightists and leftists honest. It’s an all-around mix, and he throws 98, and it’s that mentality that we preach about, like, hey, just throw strikes, and your stuff goes out.
In fact, that’s why the Tigers have Beau Brieske. It was his fourth appearance in October and he has not yet allowed a hit.
Not bad for a 27th-round draft pick out of Colorado State-Pueblo, a Division II school.
Brieske and Hurter headlined Detroit’s final postseason victory, fueled by a pitching staff that was deployed in an unpredictable manner. Montero was announced as the starting pitcher on Wednesday morning, and given his admirable performance in a rotation role for the Tigers in the second half, he seemed poised to give Detroit some length from the start of the game.
But as with any Tigers game not started by Tarik Skubal, there is no way to truly know which pitcher Hinch will lean on most until the game actually unfolds. In this case, it was Hurter who emerged as the so-called “bulk man” after Montero completed a scoreless first inning with 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 nearly threw a combined no-hitter against the Orioles in September, it was Hurter who recorded 17 of 27 outs in the middle innings. In his postseason debut against the Astros, he collected five putouts as one of seven Tigers in Detroit’s pitching chaos masterclass in Game 2.
On Wednesday, Hurter served as a bridge to Brieske and beyond as the Tigers’ bullpen once again demonstrated its strength.
‘He’s funky. Even for right-handers it’s hard,” Rogers said. “I can’t even imagine being a lefty. It’s hard to catch sometimes – and when it’s hard to catch, it’s hard to hit.”
Offered Hinch: “I mean, obviously, with this kind of strategy that we have, we can give different looks to different guys. You have a 6-foot-1 lefty [in Hurter] all the way down to some fireball righties [Tyler] Holton throws backdoor cutters to Brieske and throws turbo sinkers and changeups.
In the seventh, it was Will Vest’s turn to put the kibosh on a Cleveland rally. With two outs and runners on first and second base, he faced Fry. Vest unleashed six 97-98 mph heaters, the last of which Fry made for a hard liner toward third base — only to see Matt Vierling make a jumping foul to end the frame. It was one of those days for the Guardians’ offense, a continuation of a frustrating stretch at the plate that left Cleveland’s season on the brink of elimination.
Since exploding five runs out of the gate before recording an out in Game 1, Cleveland’s bats have gone ice cold. The Guardians have scored just two runs in their past 26 innings, both coming in the sixth inning of Game 1. It’s an especially concerning déjà vu considering the Guardians’ similar woes in their most recent postseason appearance in 2022. But this drought has reached a previously unforeseen level of offensive ineptitude: it is the first time in franchise history that Cleveland has been shut out of consecutive postseason games.
Detroit’s lineup wasn’t particularly explosive on Wednesday – Cleveland even outscored Detroit 6 to 5 – but the blows were much more timely. Unlike Game 2, when a 0-0 tie continued in the ninth inning until Kerry Carpenter’s epic swing against Emmanuel Clase, Detroit didn’t wait to give the pitching staff some support. Riley Greene provided a quick jolt in the bottom of the first with a single up the middle to score Parker Meadows, who led off the game with a single.
It was Greene’s first run in this postseason, perhaps a sign of things to come for the 24-year-old, whose rise from promising talent to full-fledged All-Star has been a crucial development in Detroit’s rise.
“He was under a lot of pressure at times this season because he was the guy that every other manager was up against,” Hinch said of Greene before Game 3. “They brought in their best relievers, they brought in their southpaws, they would bring in everyone they could to deal with Riley while the rest of the lineup tried to figure it out. He didn’t panic. He didn’t worry. 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 happen well in the future, and they were absolutely right .”
Vierling scored a second run with a sac-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 started his first 0-for-14 run of October with nine strikeouts. It wasn’t much, but Detroit proved it can win games with a well-coordinated offense rather than an overwhelming offensive performance. Cleveland’s lineup did the same thing over the course of the regular season, but it didn’t work as the stakes have escalated. That’s a trend that needs to be reversed quickly if the Guardians want to push this series to a Game 5 at home.
On Thursday in Game 4, it will be Tanner Bibee who takes 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 roll out an unspecified range of weapons. That’s just how they like it.
The Tigers are one win away from the ALCS, with a chance to punch their ticket to the next round at home on Thursday. For Rogers, the Tigers’ longest-tenured player and the lone survivor from the 114-game losing 2019 team, Game 3 was a great validation of what Comerica Park has to offer as a postseason venue.
“It was unbelievable, man,” he said. “I grabbed Holton after the game when he was on the mound and said, ‘Man, enjoy this.’ This doesn’t happen often, and it’s really cool to see and hear the sights and sounds.
“[The fans] were loud and did what they had to do. They want to see playoff baseball here, and we brought them a good game.”
