After a thrilling ninth-inning comeback for the win on Friday night, the Tigers had their first crack at a series win against the Angels somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area. The drama was racheted-down considerably on Saturday night, though, with a convincing 7-0 win, ensuring a series victory.
Making his fourteenth start for the Tigers this year was Tarik Skubal. He’s had some short starts recently; his previous two starts only saw him complete five innings each. (Somewhere up there, Mickey Lolich shed a single tear.) He’d been more hittable in those starts, too — but let’s not forget, he underwent surgery on his throwing elbow earlier this season and the fact that he’s 100 percent now is something of a medical miracle.
Facing the Tigers was Grayson Rodriguez, who’s having a rough season, his first for the Angels after one full season in Baltimore, back in 2024. A variety of elbow and lat injuries kept him on the shelf for the entirety of the 2025 season and the start of 2026. But, after returning, he had back trouble that sat him down for almost a month. It’s been a tough go for him since being a highly-touted prospect drafted in 2018.
Kevin McGonigle hit a hustle-double which Mike Trout couldn’t quite corral to lead off the game. Dillon Dingler got hit for the second consecutive at-bat, dating back to Friday night, to put the first two runners on. Colt Keith followed with a sharp single to centre to score McGonigle and put runners at the corners. After Riley Greene struck out, Spencer Torkelson cracked a long, loud home run to left-centre to put the Tigers up 4-0 early.
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Even the outs were hard-hit balls for the Tigers: Matt Vierling lined-out to left for the third out in the first, and it was 107.4 mph (172.8 km/h, 48.0 m/s) off the bat.
The baserunners kept coming in the second, as James Outman and McGonigle both singled to lead off. Dingler got hit again — yes, his third consecutive hit-by-pitch — and the bases were loaded. Keith hit a deep fly ball to Trout in centre, Outman scored, everyone else moved up a base, and it was 5-0. Greene’s deep line drive, also to centre, scored McGonigle for another run.
With two out in the fourth, Dingler did not get hit by a pitch: he doubled to the left-centrefield wall! Keith then hit a very, very high chopper that gave him enough time to get to first as Dingler took third. Alas, Greene followed with a deep flyout and that ended the inning.
Meanwhile, Skubal was far less nibbly than he’d been in those previous starts in which he only got 15 outs each — he was going right at hitters and getting groundouts on far fewer pitches. Through four innings he’d only thrown 54 pitches (36 for strikes), in giving up three harmless singles, no walks, and striking out seven.
Torkelson got a hold of another one to lead off the fifth, blasting a second long home run to centre, his eighteenth of the season, for a 7-0 lead.
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A pair of singles sandwiched around a popout to start the bottom of the sixth marked the first time Skubal had allowed a runner to second base. But then Vaughn Grissom hit a grounder to shortstop for, as they say, a “tailor-made” double play to end the inning. Skubal mowed through the Angels in the seventh and his evening was done: 7 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K, 60 strikes out of 87 pitches. His changeup was lethal and he did a good job stuffing a mix of sinkers and fourseamers inside to right-handers. That’s a part of his game that’s been inconsistent at times since his return. (I love to see complete games, but it was a seven-run game, I mean, come on, now.)
Jacob Waguespack took over for Skubal to start the eighth, and a single and a walk put two runners on with one out. A foul popup to Torkelson was the second out, but a walk to Trout loaded the bases and AJ Hinch had seen enough. Kyle Finnegan was brought in, and on the second pitch Grissom launched a long fly ball to centre; Outman raced back to make a fine running catch look easy-peasy.
Keith hit his fourth single of the night in the ninth. Good for him!
Brenan Hanifee took over for the ninth, and he gave up a harmless single amongst the three quick outs he got. You can shove all those exciting, dramatic wins in a sack, buster! Give me a nice, easy, never-in-doubt victory any darn day of the week. The series finale starts just after 4:00 pm EDT on Sunday afternoon.
Final score: Tigers 7, Angels 0
Here’s a delightful stat for you
Observations and Observances
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Other than Grayson Rodriguez, there has been one major-leaguer with either the first or last name of Grayson: former Tiger Grayson Greiner. Remember him? I do, sort-of. I remembered that he was tall and couldn’t hit very well.
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Colt Keith has had an interesting trip around the infield. In his rookie year he appeared 0 times at first base, 133 times at second base, 0 times at third base, and 14 times at DH; let’s call that 0/133/0/14. Last year it was 18/26/37/52, and this year it’s 7/0/46/30.
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The Angels play in a stadium called Angel Stadium. That’s nice.
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On this day in 1995, the Soufrière Hills volcano on Montserrat started erupting, and the ash and pyroclastic flows from it have essentially made the southern half of the island uninhabitable to this day. It still occasionally erupts.
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