Tigers' troubling trend of 1-run losses starting to pile up

PITTSBURGH -- It’s not just the sights that make PNC Park such an incredible place to catch a ballgame. It’s the sounds. The Pittsburgh skyline provides an amazing backdrop, but the Allegheny River traffic provides ambient noise, from the whir of jetskis passing by to the horn of the bigger boats traversing the waterway.

As Brandon Lowe’s ninth-inning drive soared down the right-field line, the only sound was the murmur of the crowd, anxiously awaiting its intersection with the foul pole. The ensuing sound of the ball hitting the inside of the pole for a walk-off home run might as well have sounded like a crash to those watching from and behind the Tigers’ dugout.

It is a unique sound, but a familiar feeling, and it sums up the Tigers’ predicament that left their clubhouse silent after the 4-3 loss to the Pirates.

They were three outs away from an eighth consecutive road series win, and Jackson Jobe’s second win in three starts back from Tommy John surgery, only to suffer their MLB-high 19th loss after leading in the seventh inning or later, according to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs.

They’re 12-22 in one-run games, tied with the Royals for the most one-run losses this season. They haven’t won a one-run game since taking back-to-back results from Kansas City on July 23 and 24. By comparison, the Tigers went 52-36 in one-run games over the previous two seasons en route to back-to-back Wild Card berths.

For a team struggling to stay in contention for a playoff spot, even after trading Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize at the Deadline, it is a ruinous trait. The Tigers have ridden a wave of youthful contributions to defy expectations of a post-Trade Deadline dropoff, but the issues that led the front office to sell at the Deadline are the same issues facing the team now. The Tigers held on to win Monday’s series opener but made a seven-run lead turn perilous with the potential tying run at the plate.

Detroit’s nine wins in August have all been by two runs or more. Some of that is the byproduct of an offense that pummeled opponents for a stretch, scoring eight or more runs five times in a six-game stretch of their West Coast trip earlier this month.

On a day when a resurgent Jobe should have given the Tigers reason for hope down the stretch, outdueling Paul Skenes in a battle of former top prospect pitchers with questions, the blown lead left the clubhouse nearly silent after the game.

“You can’t dwell on it, because it’s going to compound if you keep on dwelling on it,” catcher Dillon Dingler said. “Obviously you have to learn from what went wrong and attack it.”

The Tigers hit Skenes around for three runs on four hits and four walks over 4 1/3 innings. The only 100-plus mph fastball of the afternoon came from Jobe, who hit the mark exactly on a first-inning strikeout of Esmerlyn Valdez. Oneil Cruz hit a two-out RBI single to put the Pirates ahead early, but Jobe kept the Pittsburgh offense contained from there, scattering two singles, two walks and a hit batter the rest of the way.

Jobe was neither as dominant as his season debut in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, nor as ineffective as his start against the White Sox last Friday. His fastball averaged 98 mph, but more importantly, his secondary pitches were useful, led by a slider that induced three swings and misses.

Jobe was effective enough to pitch into the sixth inning for the first time since his return, striking out Valdez for a third time to lead off the frame before giving way to Tyler Holton. Rafael Flores Jr.’s pinch-hit home run off Jacob Waguespack brought Pittsburgh within a run in the seventh.

The Tigers saw Gleyber Torres thrown out at home in the fifth on a Kevin McGonigle double, then left two runners on in the top of the ninth. But they sent Kenley Jansen out for the ninth looking for his 493rd career save, having racked up four saves and a win in five outings this month.

With one out, Flores hit an 0-2 cutter 431 feet to left to tie it.

“You feel like you're coasting there, 0-2,” Jansen said. “If I see him on the fastball, I probably will go to my slider there. But the fact that he swung through, to me, looked bad on strike two. I just keep feeding him that heater there. I guess he cheated to it, fully committed to it and he got it.”

After retiring Spencer Horwitz, Jansen had a 1-2 count on Lowe, only to leave a cutter middle-in.

“That was a weird one, too,” Jansen said. “Just this whole day was weird, honestly.”