Tigers more than willing to throw shade at Guardians and Stephen Vogt
By Mark Powell
The Detroit Tigers pitched a shutout in Game 3 against the Cleveland Guardians. No, Tarik Skubal wasn't on the mound, as the likely AL Cy Young winner was watching from the Detroit dugout. Rather, the Tigers used six pitchers in a bullpen game -- Keider Montero, Brant Hurter, Beau Brieske, Sean Guenther, Will Vest and Tyler Holton all combined for nine innings of shutout baseball, and the Guardians should be very worried.
Not only is Cleveland facing elimination, but Skubal remains for a looming Game 5. If Detroit does fall to the Guardians in Game 4 -- a game slated to be started by pitcher Reese Olsen -- they will have their ace on the bump for a must-win contest on the road.
Perhaps most concerning of all to the Guardians is that Detroit's pitching staff is a runaway freight train. The Tigers preach chaos, and as frustrating as it may be for Guardians fans to watch, AJ Hinch prefers it this way, as he makes a huge impact on the game. Hinch is a strength for Detroit this season, but can Stephen Vogt match him?
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work onThe Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.
Sure sounds like Tigers threw some shade at Guardians manager Stephen Vogt
Vogt is a former catcher himself and by all accounts has done a tremendous job in his first season as manager in Cleveland. The Guardians won a surprisingly-tough AL Central division by a good margin. However, the playoffs are a different animal, and the rest of baseball let the Tigers get hot. The Gritty Tigs are a tough out this time of year, especially with the way they are pitching. Hinch is a veteran and has a World Series under his belt.
Jeff Riger of 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit hinted the Tigers don't believe Vogt can keep up, or at least he's not in Hinch's weight class just yet as a manager.
"The overwhelming feeling I get leaving the Tigers clubhouse is that AJ Hinch extremely out-managed Stephen Vogt," Riger wrote on X. "One Tigers reliever even brought up the fact that Will Brennan, who was in the Cleveland starting lineup didn’t even get a chance to hit."
Riger also quoted Tigers catcher Jake Rogers, who thinks Detroit has a tougher postseason environment than Cleveland.
“I assume they did it because we haven’t been there in a while but I don’t think that’s true. It was just as loud as Cleveland, honestly it was a little bit more," Rogers said.
Detroit has the edge as of this writing, so it's natural to feel confident. We'll see if AJ 'Clinch' can get the job done on Thursday afternoon.