DETROIT — Here we are on the dim outskirts of major league relevancy, far from the glare of any type of playoff race. Two teams with big aspirations coming into the season that have been similarly wracked by injuries and underperformance.
The Tigers and visiting Los Angeles Angels again reduced to playing out the string and realigning hopes and dreams for next season.
What are you going to do except enjoy a baseball game on its own merits, independent of any larger context?
Not hard to do given the star power of the Angels — Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout hitting 1-2 in their order — and the brilliance of Tigers’ starter Matt Manning.
Even if the Tigers' offense gave the large iFiesta Tigre crowd of 28,197 nothing to cheer about, succumbing to lefty Patrick Sandoval, who pitched a complete-game shutout in the Angels' 1-0 victory in the first of three games at Comerica Park.
Manning breezed through the Angels' lineup, going seven innings on 90 pitches, allowing one run and three hits with six strikeouts.
He was featuring a lively four-seam fastball (which was touching 97 mph), a well-spotted a two-seamer and a dirty and diverse slider. He was effectively changing speeds and locations with the slider. The velocity range on the pitch was 81 to 86 mph.
He struck out Ohtani to end the fifth with three sliders, all at different speeds – 83 mph swinging strike one, 81 mph in the dirt after getting ahead 0-2 with a 95-mph heater, then getting the punch-out with an elevated slider at 85 mph.
He faced Trout, making first start back off the injured list, to lead off the sixth and punched him out, too. He started him off with two sliders, then got whiffs on back-to-back four-seamers at 92 mph.
The only mistake was the 1-0 change-up he left in the middle of the plate that Jared Walsh smoked on a line just inside the foul pole in right. Manning threw just one other change-up in the game.
But he finished his night by dispatching 13 of the last 14 batters — with the Walsh homer the only marker in the game to that point .
That was because the Tigers’ hitters were having an awful time with Sandoval. He was masterful, primarily mixing four pitches between 79 and 93 mph. A four-seamer that stayed mostly up in the zone, change-ups and sliders that moved in opposite directions and a two-seamer he was busting in on the hands of right-handed hitters.
Missing barrels with all of them. He allowed four hits, all singles and induced 12 ground-ball outs. Three of those were turned into double-plays. He also struck out nine.
The Tigers didn't move a runner into scoring position.
Sandoval completed the game on 97 pitches.
