Athletics 3, Tigers 2: Bats fall silent in Anibal Sanchez’s likely final home start

For the second game in a row, Anibal Sanchez harkened back to his glory days, pitching well enough to deliver the Detroit Tigers a win. After striking out 11 White Sox hitters last Friday, Sanchez fanned eight Oakland Athletics in six strong innings on Wednesday. Despite only allowing one run, Sanchez was handed the loss in his likely final home start at Comerica Park. Detroit tacked on a couple of late runs, but dropped their series finale against Oakland, 3-2.

Sanchez looked like his old self for most of the game, holding the A’s to just three hits in his six innings. His lone flub came in the third, when he gave up back-to-back doubles to Bruce Maxwell and Marcus Semien. This plated Oakland’s first run of the game, and they held that 1-0 lead until Sanchez was pulled. Reliever Daniel Stumpf coughed up a pair of runs in the seventh to stretch Oakland’s lead to three before Joe Jimenez worked a clean eighth inning.

Unfortunately, Detroit’s bats didn’t wake up until the ninth inning. Efren Navarro and Mikie Mahtook led off the inning with a walk and a double, respectively, and Andrew Romine plated them both with an RBI single to right. That would be all the Tigers would manage, though. The A’s called on reliever Liam Hendriks, who quickly retired Jose Iglesias and Alex Presley to end the game.

ROARS:

Anibal Sanchez: He pitched well enough to leave Detroit a winner, striking out eight in six innings.

Joe Jimenez: A scoreless inning! And two strikeouts!

Andrew Romine: Don Kelly 2.0 was all of Detroit’s offense in this game, driving in both runs in the ninth.

HISSES:

Daniel Stumpf: The two-run homer he allowed to Marcus Semien in the seventh was ultimately the difference in the game. Double hiss for not even taking the loss for that flub.

The Tigers offense: Anibal deserved better, you guys.

STATS AND INFO:

Nicholas Castellanos extended his hit streak to 17 games with a single in the sixth. No word on how long his “games with a creepy bitmoji GIF” streak runs.