Detroit Tigers (8-19) vs. Oakland Athletics (10-18)
When: 7:10 p.m. Monday.
Where: Comerica Park in Detroit.
TV: Bally Sports Detroit.
Radio: WXYT-FM (97.1) (Tigers radio affiliates).
Weather forecast: Clear skies, low-60s.
[ Happy Mother’s Day, baseball-style: How 1 mom put 2 sons into the Tigers’ system ]
Probable pitchers: Tigers RHP Michael Pineda (1-1, 3.77 ERA) vs. Athletics RHP Paul Blackburn (3-0, 2.22 ERA).
• Box score
Tigers lineup: TBA
MIGGY TALKS:Cabrera shares ‘bottom line’ reality for Detroit Tigers, worst team in the AL
Game notes: The forgotten things about MLB “fire sales,” in which teams opt to “jumpstart the rebuild” (or “save money,” depending on your position and/or honesty relative to the team), is that sometimes they do result in hidden gems getting a chance to sparkle. That appears to be the case for the A’s with starter Paul Blackburn, who entered this season with a career 5.74 ERA, 77 strikeouts and 38 walks over 138 innings (27 starts). (Those numbers might overstate his performance from 2018-21; they were boosted by a decent rookie season in 2017, in which he posted a strikeout-light 3.22 ERA over 58⅔ innings.)
But he was a former first-round pick (barely, going at No. 56 overall in 2012), and those fellas tend to get a few extra shots, even if they’re on their fourth organization, like Blackburn was. And the A’s certainly had holes in their rotation to fill, after trading Chris Bassitt (to the Mets) and Sean Manaea (to the Padres) in the offseason. And over his first five starts of 2022, accounting for 24⅓ innings, he has been the Athletics’ best starter, with a 0.945 WHIP and a 2.22 ERA that’s actually worse than his peripheral stats — 23 strikeouts, three walks, one home run — predict. (Baseball-Reference puts his Fielding Independent Pitching at 2.09,…
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Wanda Beck
View More PostsWanda Beck is a technology reporter who covers the intersection of business and crypto. A native of Boston, Wanda spent almost five years at The Boston25News, where she wrote extensively about the media industry's struggle to adapt to the Internet.
