Tigers blanked by Bibee, Guardians, 7-0, in series opener

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on May 22, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — Manager AJ Hinch, maybe getting a little weary of answering questions about the magnitude of this series with the Guardians, finally summed it up like this:

“It’s cool and it doesn’t matter.”

Both things can be true.

The Guardians, who broke the Tigers’ hearts in Game 5 of the ALDS last October, drew first blood in the new season.

They took the first game of a four-game series in the rain at Comerica Park Thursday, beating the Tigers, 7-0, behind the stellar pitching of right-hander Tanner Bibee.

The Tigers managed only three singles off Bibee through seven innings and had just two at-bats with runners in scoring position. Both came in the third inning after Dillon Dingler and Javier Baez singled.

But Bibee struck out Kerry Carpenter and got Gleyber Torres to line out to center.

Torres came out of the game after that and was being evaluated for lower right leg discomfort.

Bibee, smartly mixing sweepers, change-ups, cutters, sinkers and curveballs off 94-mph four-seamers, finished with eight strikeouts. He got 14 swings and misses (43 swings) and 17 called strikes.

The Tigers mounted a very unusual rally in the eighth. They loaded the bases against lefty reliever Tim Herrin on a walk to Trey Sweeney, an infield single by Baez and a single by pinch-hitter Justyn-Henry Malloy on a ball center fielder Lane Thomas lost in the lights.

The Guardians brought in right-handed fireballer Cade Smith, who dominated the Tigers in the postseason last year. Same story.

He struck out pinch-hitter Akil Baddoo, Zach McKinstry and Riley Greene.

The Guardians blew the game open in the top of the ninth. Lefty Sean Guenther, after a scoreless eighth, hit Santana in the foot and walked Daniel Schneemann. Bo Naylor then laid down a bunt that Guenther fielded quickly and cleanly and made a head-high throw to third base.

McKinstry, though, missed the throw. One run scored and then, off right-hander John Brebbia, Angel Martinez sliced a two-run double to left and Thomas lofted a sacrifice fly to center.

Tigers’ starter Jack Flaherty matched Bibee in the hit column, but two of the three hits he allowed flipped the game.

Carlos Santana jumped a 3-1 slider that was barely on the outside corner and drove it into the right-center field gap, scoring two runs.

Angel Martinez led off the fifth with a solo homer to right.

That was it, but that was enough.

Flaherty ended up striking out eight over 6 2/3 innings. His strikeout of Jose Ramirez in the first inning was the 1,000th of his career. It was a beauty, too, a rare three-pitch punch-out of Ramirez.

He got strike one with a knuckle-curve and strike two with a change-up (Ramirez lost his bat on the swing). Flaherty then froze him with a 95-mph four-seamer.

Flaherty threw 108 pitches, the most by a Tigers’ pitcher since Tarik Skubal on June 28, 2022.

Hinch’s efforts to keep this series in perspective are right and just, of course, especially after taking it on the chin Thursday.

"This hasn’t been circled on a calendar," Hinch said. "It’s not something that is the end-all, be-all. It’s part of the schedule. We know we’re going to play them again.”

Guardians’ manager Stephen Vogt echoed Hinch’s sentiments about a four-game series in May, divisional, rivalry or otherwise.

“I haven’t looked at the standings yet,” he said. “We play 162 games. Every time you play a divisional opponent it’s a big series and we look at every game as a playoff game no matter who are playing.”