The Chicago Cubs beat up on the Detroit Tigers Tuesday night, chasing starter Framber Valdez before he could complete the first inning. The 11-2 win erased the bad taste left from Monday night’s loss, but despite the blowout win, Pete Crow-Armstrong was the most pissed-off player on the field.
Crow-Armstrong leadoff with a triple in the first inning, scored on a Carson Kelly single, and then walked with the bases loaded, which was the final nail in Valdez’s coffin. The Cubs were up 6-0 after the first inning, went up seven with a Crow-Armstrong RBI single in the third, and added two more on a Michael Conforto home run in the fifth. Meanwhile, David Peterson shut down the Tigers’ offense, and by the time the bottom of the seventh inning rolled around, Detroit waived the white flag.
Former Cubs infielder Zach McKinstry was brought in to pitch as the Tigers trailed 9-0. As you may know, MLB does allow teams to use position players to come into blowout games, either if their team is winning by 10 or more runs, but only in the ninth inning in that case, or if their team is losing by eight or more runs at any point.
The Tigers obviously were in a brutal spot on Tuesday after Valdez only got two outs in the first inning. In the series opener, the Tigers used five relievers as Jack Flaherty only went four innings. In Sunday’s series finale against the Los Angeles Angels, the Tigers used four relievers because starting pitcher Casey Mize left with an injury in the fourth inning.
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So, with a depleted bullpen, A.J. Hinch did what was best for his team. He rested his bullpen in the seventh and eighth innings, and as is the case most of the time when a position player comes in to pitch, it’s just not baseball anymore. Guys are lobbing the ball up there, while umpires are calling anything near the plate a strike. It’s not competitive, but it’s also in the rules, so you can’t really blame the Tigers for going to it to save their relief pitchers.
Well, Crow-Armstrong was up, and he was the most pissed-off player on the field. The body language said it all.
Unfortunately, we’ll keep seeing this as long as MLB maintains this rule. You’re not going to have a mercy rule in professional sports, so that’s out the window. The only solution is to completely ban position players from pitching, but then you get into the whole player safety aspect of the game because the teams are technically going to them to avoid overworking their pitchers in the bullpen.
After McKinstry walked three batters and gave up two runs, backup catcher Jake Rogers pitched a scoreless eighth inning and actually struck out two Cubs.
