Tigers offense puts Jack Flaherty in uncomfortable position as fan unrest grows

The Tigers re-signing Jack Flaherty this offseason was a more than pleasant surprise. The guy had done good work in Detroit before being traded off to win a World Series with the Dodgers, and then his surprisingly long free agency allowed the Tigers front office (who seemed pretty adamant that they were done signing starting pitchers by that point) to swoop in and get him to back up Tarik Skubal.

He got off to a great start with the rest of the Tigers' dominant rotation, but things have slowly but surely taken a turn for the worse. Over his two starts on June 14 and June 20, he only pitched seven innings and gave up 15 earned runs with eight walks.

He looked a lot better on Wednesday against the Athletics, going six innings and giving up three runs for a quality start. All three of those runs came on a homer from rookie Nick Kurtz, while the Tigers' offense was blanked by A's starter Jacob Lopez through seven (and then they only got one hit off the two relievers that followed).

The loss wasn't really Flaherty's fault — three runs is far from an insurmountable deficit — but that three-run homer surrendered to a rookie after two enraging preceding starts was more than enough for fans to start turning on him even more. Wednesday was Flaherty being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and nothing short of a pristine start would have saved him from fan outrage.

Jack Flaherty improved in latest start, but it may not be enough to win Tigers fans back

He's struggled with his fastball this year but generated a 44.2% whiff rate on Wednesday, which is at least a marked improvement from it dipping down to 11% at one point this season. It's clear he's still struggling with command, though; he gave up four walks, two of which scored on Kurtz's homer.

Flaherty has oscillated between pretty good starts and very bad ones since the end of April. He'll go one or two games pitching five or six innings and giving up fewer than four runs, and then he'll turn around and pitch anywhere between two and four innings while giving up five or more runs. It's the kind of whiplash that makes it hard to buy into any perceived improvements.

If he continues to struggle, he'll almost certainly exercise his $20 million player option for 2026, so the Tigers could be stuck with a pumpkin. The best fans can do at this point is keep their fingers crossed and hope that he finds his groove again. The pitching staff fixed him once; maybe they can do it again.