HOUSTON — For 8.2 innings and two strikes, the Tigers' lay dormant at the hands of Houston Astros pitching.
Then closer Ryan Pressly, with a runner at first base, hung a two-strike slider to Jeimer Candelario. The ball left his bat with an exit velocity of 105 mph and traveled 383 feet into the seats in right field. A dispiriting 2-0 loss was suddenly a 2-2 tie going into the bottom of the ninth.
That, as it turned out, was but a reprieve for the visitors.
Kyle Tucker stroked an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth off Gregory Soto to give the Astros a 3-2 win.
Yordan Alvarez thought he'd ended it four batters earlier. He stood at home plate admiring his towering fly ball to left-center field, thinking he'd just walked it off. The ball bounced off the wall and he settled for a long single.
The Tigers lost for the ninth time in 11 games. They are eight games under .500 (8-16).
Tigers lefty starter Tarik Skubal, who gave up 35 home runs last season, hadn’t allowed a single one in four starts. Then Astros perennial All-Star Jose Altuve sent the first pitch of his fifth start here Thursday night 413 feet off the signage in left-center field.
But that blast and another by rookie Jeremy Pena (off a hanging curve ball) leading off the fifth inning was all the damage Skubal tolerated, striking out nine without a walk in six strong innings.
Undaunted by Altuve’s rude greeting, Skubal kept attacking the strike zone with fastballs, sliders, curveballs and the occasional change-up. At one point in the third inning, his strike-ball count was 31-8. He ended up with 15 swings and misses and 13 called strikes.
He got six of his nine strikeouts with firmer-than-usual slider (89-91 mph) that he was locating up in the zone.
He’s the first Tigers starter to post nine strikeouts without a walk since Matthew Boyd did it twice in 2019. On the season, Skubal has 29 strikeouts and three walks.
He left at 90 pitches after six innings, trailing 2-0 and probably deserving of a happier fate.
The Tigers couldn’t do much with Astros starter Jose Urquidy, who kept hitters off-balance for six innings by effectively mixing his elite change-up and curve ball off a 95-mph fastball. The Tigers had six hits, one extra-base hit (a one-out double by Robbie Grossman in the first inning).
Miguel Cabrera got three of the six hits, the second single tying him with Al Kaline on baseball’s all-time hits list, 3,008. Cabrera also singled in the ninth inning.
Relievers Hector Neris, Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly finished the job for Urquidy with three scoreless innings.
