DETROIT — There will be stretches of the season when giving a team a three-run head-start in the first inning won’t seem like such a deep hole. But when your offense has managed three runs in a game just three times in the last three weeks, that hole might’ve looked like a canyon Thursday afternoon.
The Tigers on this day, though, climbed to the top of the canyon only to fall back in.
Oakland first baseman Seth Brown, against reliever Michael Fulmer, on a 3-2 pitch with a man on and two outs in the eighth inning, blasted a two-run home run to send the Athletics to a 5-3 win.
The Tigers lost four of five to the Athletics, a team that came into Detroit on a nine-game losing streak. The Tigers are 3-16 in their last 19.
Fulmer, pitching for the second day in a row, didn't have the same zip on either his sinker or four-seam fastball. He got the first two hitters in the eighth, but walked Sheldon Neuse.
Fulmer fell behind the left-handed hitting Brown 3-1. He got a called strike two with a 92-mph sinker and came back with a 92-mph four-seamer that Brown launched into the seats in right field.
Fulmer's average fastball velocity Thursday was 92 mph, 2 mph under his season average.
The Tigers had erased the three-run deficit with a brief flurry in the fifth and sixth innings.
They scored twice off Oakland starter James Kaprielian in the fifth. A bloop single by Willi Castro started it. It was his second hit of the game and seventh hit in his series, raising his batting average to .333.
Spencer Torkelson, mired in a 4-for-45 skid, drew his second walk of the game. Tucker Barnhart then lined a double to the gap in right-center to score Castro. Robbie Grossman’s ground out scored Torkelson.
Jeimer Candelario greeted right-handed reliever Domingo Acevedo with a triple to open the sixth inning. He scored on a double by Miguel Cabrera and the game was tied.
It was fun while it lasted.
An odd pattern repeated for rookie right-hander Beau Brieske.
Give up a hit to the first batter of the game — check. Leadoff single by Tony Kemp on his first pitch.
Get into early trouble — his ERA over the first three innings was 6.75 — check. He gave up three runs on three hits in a 35-pitch first inning, an inning exacerbated by his own error, allowing a slow-rolling comebacker to get by him.
Keep grinding and keep the game close — check.
It’s been the same script for all four of his big league starts, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
From the second inning through the sixth, Brieske kept the Athletics off the board, allowing just one single and a pair of walks and ended up with a quality start.
Brieske’s ERA in innings 4-6 — 0.00.
