DETROIT -- Tommy Kahnle was part of a Yankees bullpen that pitched in the World Series last fall. He has pitched in four of the past eight postseasons with the Yankees and Dodgers. He signed a one-year contract with the Tigers on Jan. 29 to join a young team that rode pitching chaos last year to its first postseason berth in 10 years.
Two months in, he has learned a lot about his new team, bullpen and otherwise.
“It’s special, I can see it,” Kahnle said. “I would say probably more the finer things of baseball. The [running] first-to-thirds are big time. And just getting guys in a position to succeed, really. I think they do a great job with what we have, and we’re excelling at it.”
The Tigers hit the road with the best record in the American League, and the second-best run differential in the Majors. Wednesday’s 4-3 win over the Giants not only completed a three-game series sweep of a team in the thick of the National League West race, it demonstrated how Detroit has gotten to this point.
On a day when the Tigers struck out 16 times and were outhit by a 10-7 margin, they won with a four-run fifth inning that included a first-to-third scamper by a ninth-hitting catcher and a go-ahead two-out single from Justyn-Henry Malloy off Randy Rodriguez, one of baseball’s toughest young relievers.
“Rodriguez is nasty,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “That’s a really good reliever with plus stuff all across the board. The human instinct is to try to do too much, especially given the lack of opportunity. But he has an uncanny ability to take a deep breath and stay in the zone.”
Said Malloy: “Just wanted to get the job done. Obviously, he’s got a really good fastball and a really good wipeout slider, so [I] just wanted to pick a pitch and be on time for it.”
Malloy’s line-drive single into left field off Rodriguez’s 97 mph fastball was his 20th hit of the season. Nearly half of them have come with runners in scoring position, when he’s 9-for-25 with 14 RBIs. He had a pinch-hit walkoff single two weeks earlier to beat the Red Sox.
“I like them; I really do,” said Malloy, who hadn’t played since Sunday. “I like to call myself an adrenaline guy. I like big moments. I think everyone in this locker room does. Runners in scoring position with a chance to impact the game, I friggin’ love it.”
Three innings later, it was Kahnle’s turn to execute in a similar situation on the other side when the Giants put runners on second and third with nobody out on John Brebbia. All the Giants needed to tie the game was a deep fly ball or a well-placed ball in play. Kahnle entered and gave them nothing.
“I knew I had to get some sort of weak contact just to get a first out,” Kahnle said, “because I know I’m not the strikeout pitcher that I once was.”
Patrick Bailey swung at Kahnle’s first-pitch changeup and flied out to shallow left, giving former Tigers prospect Willy Adames no chance to tag up from third on charging left fielder Kerry Carpenter.
Rookie second baseman Christian Koss twice could not lay down a squeeze bunt against Kahnle’s changeup, then chased a changeup in the dirt for a strikeout.
The last batter was the toughest of the bunch, but Kahnle dotted the outside corner with four changeups, getting Mike Yastrzemski to ground out to first and end the threat.
Eight pitches, eight changeups, three outs, no runs.
“You could tell the other seven relievers to do what Tommy does,” Hinch said, “and it just wouldn’t look the same or feel the same.”
Those are clutch situations that determine games and, in some cases, seasons. And the Tigers continue to execute in them at a rate that belies their experience. They’re 10-5 in one-run games, 13-14 when their opponent scores first and 10-11 when they’re outhit in a game. They have 13 comeback victories. And after losing the first three games of the homestand to the division-rival Guardians, they won four in a row, the last three by two runs or fewer.
“We find different ways to win, which is really important,” Hinch said. “I think our team has learned that we don’t know when we show up who it’s going to be. Today it’s J-Hen, tough matchup …
“That’s our team. We don’t care who the hero is. We don’t care what inning it’s going to be. We’ve shown it over and over and over again that we’re going to try to beat you with our 26 guys. And sometimes, it works.”