Tigers’ young offense navigating first rough patch.

DETROIT: Zack Gelof’s first-inning single drove Tigers left fielder Riley Greene crazy when it struck the railing along the left-field line, kicked over the cutout and meekly fell into the corner. Gelof then raced into third base with a triple that scored Oakland’s first run and set up another. After one inning, Gelof smashed a three-run home run off of Jack Flaherty’s 0-2 chase fastball, sending it well to left.

Following Detroit’s 7-1 defeat to Oakland on Sunday, Flaherty remarked, “I mean, it was three balls above the zone.” “He threw a ball with good swing where I put it, probably could have thrown it a little bit farther outside.” But give him a nod of the head.

With seven innings remaining, Gelof reached halfway to the cycle with those two swings; he finished a double shy in a 4-for-5 effort. In addition, he had as many extra-base hits during the game as the Tigers did.

The Tigers didn’t require a rotation. One more hit in the bottom of the first inning, following Gelof’s triple in the two-run first half, may have altered the course of the game, given the way A’s starter Joe Boyle toyed with the strike zone.

With nothing out and the middle of the order due up, the Tigers had runners at first and second after Parker Meadows drew a four-pitch walk and Greene hit a 3-1 fastball for a single. With one out and two fastballs in the top half of the strike zone, Spencer Torkelson got what he wanted. However, he fouled off one and hit the other to centre field, advancing runners to the corners.

With the intention of hitting a fastball, Kerry Carpenter entered the batter’s box and swung at the first pitch, a 96 mph heater on the upper inside corner. Carpenter was left with just the handle of his bat and not much more when the ball sliced through it, shattering it in half while he searched for the ball. Abraham Toro, the third baseman for the A’s, had it after catching the popup in foul zone.

Colt Keith had a 2-1 count and saw four fastballs in a row, hitting a heater at the bottom of the zone that clocked at 97 mph. The ensuing ground ball, which clocked in at 107.6 mph, was the only ball that Boyle faced throughout his five innings of play and the sixth hardest hit ball of the contest, according to Statcast. He chopped it all the way to second base.