DETROIT — The Tigers, like a lot of teams around baseball, have been treading water for most of this first month of the season.
Injuries in spring training to three key bullpen arms (Jose Cisnero, Kyle Funkhouser and Andrew Chafin) and their projected starting center fielder (Riley Greene) was the first blow. Then two-fifths of their starting rotation — Casey Mize and Matt Manning — went down. Starting shortstop Javy Baez just returned Sunday after missing nine games.
They’ve managed to hover around the .500 mark through the first 13 games, but after losing the series to the Colorado Rockies, getting beat 6-2 in the finale Sunday, and with an arduous stretch of games coming up, the water level seems to be rising.
The Tigers (6-9) leave Tuesday for a six-game trip to Minnesota and Los Angeles (Dodgers). Then, after a two-game home series with Pittsburgh, they go to Houston for four.
“Injuries are going to happen,” manager AJ Hinch said. “We do have a deeper roster today than we had at this point last year. We built the team up to be able to withstand a few of these injuries. You never want to have any of your best guys out but it creates opportunity for others.
“I like the way our team has responded. We haven’t hung our heads, pouted or complained. Just go out and try to win tonight’s game.”
The Tigers had a hard time getting the third out on Sunday. All six of the Rockies runs, five of them against lefty starter Tyler Alexander, were scored with two outs.
Alexander, who lasted just one inning in his previous start, gave up a run-scoring two-out infield single to former Tiger C.J. Cron in the first inning, a two-out, two-run homer to Randal Grichuk in the third and a two-out, two-run single to Charlie Blackmon in the fourth.
Grichuk and left-handed hitting Blackmon did most of the damage for the Rockies Blackmon ended up with four hits and Grichuk finished a triple shy of the cycle. Ryan McMahon ripped a two-out RBI single off reliever Rony Garcia in the fifth.
After erupting for 13 runs and 20 hits in Game 1 Saturday, the Tigers’ bats stayed quiet. Rockies right-hander Chad Kuhl and his dynamic slider stymied them for six innings. The Tigers swung at 21 of them and missed 14 times.
He came in with a whiff rate on his slider of 62% in his first two starts. He became the first starter in Colorado franchise history to allow two runs or fewer in the first three starts of his Rockies career.
The only time he got nicked Sunday was in the third. Austin Meadows lined a two-out single to right scoring Tucker Barnhart who had led off with a double.
The Tigers put the first two batters on against Kuhl in the sixth but came up empty. With one out, Jeimer Candelario hit a popup behind third base that fell between the third baseman, shortstop and left fielder.
Shortstop and former Tiger Jose Iglesias pounced on the ball and made a quick, strong flip-throw to third base, where Kuhl was alertly covering to get the force on Robbie Grossman, who had to hold up between second and third.
Grossman, who had two singles, rapped an RBI single off reliever Justin Lawrence in the seventh.
