Tigers' horrific defense, baserunning vs. Mets makes fans fear they're losing their identity

The Tigers played bad, bad baseball on Tuesday night against the Mets.

Things started out okay. Dillon Dingler picked up his seventh homer of the year and Spencer Torkelson brought in a run on a sac fly in the second. Jack Flaherty pitched a mostly clean first inning, giving up just one walk.

... And that's about all of the positive things we can say about the game.

What doomed the Tigers just as much as another uneven start from Flaherty — he was pulled after 3 2/3 innings and three runs allowed — was more terrible defense (oh, so much more) and some spotty baserunning.

Lowlights include a throw from third baseman Gage Workman that sailed into right field when it was meant for second base, allowing two runs to score. Pitcher Ricky Vanasco failed to complete a glove-to-hand transfer on a simple play, which allowed another run to score. Colt Keith failed to score on a Riley Greene single after barreling into the third base umpire, even after the Mets botched a throw to third and sent it into foul territory.

The Gritty Tigs of the last few years have been all about playing good, clean, sound, fundmental baseball. In 2024, when the Tigers started drawing national attention in the late months of the season and AJ Hinch was asked to describe his very young team's burgeoning identity, that's basically what he said.

Nothing about the way the Tigers played on Tuesday was good, clean, or sound.

Tigers' continuously awful defense reared its head vs. Mets, emphasizes Detroit's recent misery

The Tigers must be feeling their collective injury losses to the IL right now — it'd be really hard not to. Detroit has one of the longest ILs in baseball right now and feel like they're just trying to keep their heads above water until they get some guys back. While there has been some good news on that front, this era of no Tarik Skubal, no Gleyber Torres, no Kerry Carpenter, no Justin Verlander, no Will Vest was supposed to be a test for the rest of the roster.

And they're failing.

Detroit still has some great pieces. Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene, Kevin McGonigle, Dingler, Keith, Kyle Finnegan, Kenley Jansen. But there's no cohesion here, no life. The Tigers are playing like they've completely forgotten who they are.

The odds were already stacked against them with Flaherty on the hill for the opener, and there's perhaps more reason to be optimistic for Framber Valdez in his first start since the Trevor Story incident.

But man, does everything look very bad for the Tigers right now.

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