Detroit Tigers: 12 Memorable Moments

The Detroit Tigers finished in last place again, but let’s look back at a few positive highlights from a strange season in a surreal year.

The 2020 Detroit Tigers season is in the books, and it was another stinker. Few people had any real expectations for the club, but it’s hard not to be disappointed when the pitching staff produced the 2nd worst team ERA in franchise history, and the offense tied for last in walk rate, and led the league in strikeouts, shattering their own MLB record from 2019.

But the beauty of baseball is that even in the most boring, deflating, and dismal seasons, there are still innumerable reasons to smile. This year we saw impressive individual performances, plenty of milestones, and even a few well-played games. Here are the best moments from the 2020 Detroit Tigers season:

The Reds once had a pretty darn good pitcher named Mario Soto. He spent all 12 of his years with Cincinnati, made three all-star teams, and finished his career with a solid 3.47 ERA and exactly 100 wins. He never threw as hard as Gregory Soto, though. Soto the younger had an unsuccessful run with the Detroit Tigers in 2019, but he came into this season with a firm role in the bullpen and an ever firmer fastball. The big lefty hit the first batter he faced, but then needed just 20 pitches to record the next six outs, with four strikeouts. The above clip is the final pitch he threw that day, but some altruistic hero managed to piece together the whole dominant outing.

Oddly enough, this memorable moment came just an inning after Soto’s dominant outing. The 2019 Detroit Tigers were one of the worst offensive teams in MLB history, so the club spent the offseason adding four veteran hitters to help bolster the lineup. Things didn’t look much better in the first game of the year, when the Tigers managed just one run on three hits. But that run came courtesy of one of those veteran hitters, C.J. Cron. And two days later he helped the Tigers to a series win with a clutch 2-run shot in the 9th inning.

It may be hard to remember now, but JaCoby Jones was one of the hottest hitters in baseball for the first few weeks of the season. His best performance was in game 6 against the Royals, when he collected three of Detroit’s four hits, including two doubles and a go-ahead home run in the bottom of the 7th. As a fun side note, that game also resulted in the first career win for Tigers reliever Bryan Garcia.

Sometimes baseball doesn’t make much sense. Tyler Alexander is a legitimate MLB pitcher, albeit one who may never climb out of the role of long relief. He’s never been a big strikeout guy, and since reaching Double-A in 2016 he has surrendered about a dozen hits per nine innings. But on a random Sunday in early August he was absolutely untouchable. Alexander set the reliever record for the most consecutive strikeouts, and tied the record for any America League pitcher. The 26-year-old lefty fanned the first nine batters he faced, hit the tenth, and then struck out the next hitter. Simply incredible.

An outbreak of Covid-19 on the Cardinals meant the Detroit Tigers spent most of the first week of August out of action. All that rest apparently helped their bats, as they dropped 17 runs on the Pirates in game one of their series (in a wild game that deserves it’s own full story), and then bombarded Derek Holland in the first inning of game two. Niko Goodrum led off the game with a homer and Jonathan Schoop followed with a measly single. Then Miguel Cabrera, C.J. Cron, and Jeimer Candelario hit back-to-back-to-back home runs to give the Tigers a 5-0 lead. It was the first time the team hit four home runs in the first inning since 1974, and the first time in franchise history it happened before they made a single out.

Casey Mize’s first season in the big leagues didn’t go as planned, with no wins and an ugly 6.99 ERA, but his MLB debut gave Detroit Tigers fans a lot of hope. Mize spun four scoreless innings before things sped up on him a bit in the 5th, but he was poised, threw strikes, and showed an absolutely dominant splitter. Unfortunately that was the best his splitter looked all season, but it was a lot of fun to see 2018’s first-overall pick announce his presence with authority.

First career homers are always fun, but they get more fun when they come from one of the team’s top prospects, with the bases loaded, in a game that ended a 20-game losing streak against Cleveland. It ended up being Paredes’ only big fly of the season, but he made it count, becoming the first Detroit Tigers hitter to launch a grand slam for his first career home run since Brennan Boesch.

Victor Reyes’ two great catches also happened to come in Tarik Skubal’s first career win. Skubal was far from dominant in that outing, with just two strikeouts over five innings, but he kept Minnesota off balance and he got some help from his friends. MLB didn’t find it worthy to show his whole outing, but once again a very thoughtful individual did. And as an added bonus, Gregory Soto earned his first career save in the same game.

Sergio Alcantara is a glove-first shortstop. He has bottom-of-the-scale game power, and just nine home runs in 2,611 minor-league plate appearances. So anemic is his offense, that many fans expected him to be cut from the 40-man roster, and FanGraphs even suggested his 70-grade arm would be better served on the mound. So what does he do in his first career big-league at-bat? Crush a home run to left center, becoming the first Tigers position player to go deep in his first career AB since Reggie Sanders in 1974. How can you not be romantic about baseball?

Tigers fans across the country were given a treat on September 9th, when YouTube chose that afternoon’s tilt against Milwaukee as their free MLB Game of the Week. Then Detroit lost 19-0. It was truly one of the most lopsided games ever, with the Brewers racking up 5 home runs, 7 walks, 8 doubles, and 21 total hits, while the Tigers went 2-for-28 with no walks. But, as often happens in these debacles, a position player came in to pitch the 9th inning. Travis Demeritte looked solid, pounding the strike zone with low-80s fastballs. When he got ahead of Milwaukee shortstop Orlando Arcia, announcer Dan Plesac pleaded for Detroit’s outfielder to drop in a curveball, and he obliged. Unfortunately it was a bit low, but it provided a little fun in an otherwise brutal loss.

Miguel Cabrera’s last four seasons have seemingly been filled with more frustration and injuries than highlights. That’s part of what made his September 24th performance against the Twins so great, even though the Tigers fell 7-6. Miggy hit two 3-run homers that night – both absolute bombs – to tie his career high of 6 RBIs, and in the process he passed Bobby Abreu for the most career runs scored by a Venezuelan-born player. It was another fantastic milestone for a no-doubt Hall-of-Famer.