Tigers on wrong end of walk-off for 7th time this season

CHICAGO -- Tigers shortstop Zach Short crouched at his position almost in disbelief as Miguel Vargas rounded the bases following his two-run, walk-off home run that gave the White Sox a 4-3 win over Detroit.

He stayed there as the fireworks went off, and the White Sox celebrated an unlikely win over a Tigers team that has limped to a 6-20 May with two games remaining in this dreadful month.

“There’s no good way to walk off the field,” manager A.J. Hinch said after the Tigers’ league-leading seventh walk-off loss. “When you’re the visiting team and you’re walking off the field, the emotion’s pretty, pretty deep. It’s not a great feeling, and we have to go home with it and come back tomorrow ready to play another game.”

This loss is painful because of just how close the Tigers were to picking up a series-opening win over the White Sox.

They held a 2-1 lead with one out in the bottom of the ninth and a pair of runners on. Chicago right fielder Rikuu Nishida laid down a bunt to pitcher Kyle Finnegan, who fielded it and threw to Spencer Torkelson at first. Andrew Benintendi broke for home from third base when Finnegan fired the ball, and Torkelson’s throw home sailed wide, forcing extras.

The Tigers had another chance to win in the 10th, with Drew Anderson picking up a pair of outs before Vargas’ walk-off blast.

“It’s a brutal feeling because we were in a position to win it a couple times by one,” Hinch said. “It’s a miserable feeling because it is a game that we had within our grasp. We were one out away twice.”

The Tigers will rue spoiling a gem from right-handed starter Troy Melton, too.

The 2022 fourth-round pick tossed seven innings of one-run ball, providing a much-needed boost to a Tigers pitching staff that has been crushed by injuries. They placed right-handed starter Casey Mize on the 15-day IL before Friday’s series opener. Mize is their 10th pitcher on the IL.

“He was keeping them off balance all day,” catcher Dillon Dingler said. “Obviously they hit a couple of doubles there in the first batter or second batter of the inning, so he had to work around a little bit of traffic, but all of his pitches were working.”

Melton, who started the year on the 60-day IL after sustaining right elbow inflammation in Spring Training, gave Detroit length and quality on Friday, despite allowing four doubles – two of which came with one out or fewer.

“End of the day you’re just trying to make pitches – guys on base or not, to be honest with you,” Melton said. “I try not to make the moment any more than it is. Just out there trying to execute a pitch and get the guy out, weak contact or hopefully a punchout every once in a while.”

Melton’s outing, like Dingler’s two-run home run in the third that gave them the lead early, proved to be a moot point in a season that seems to grow more challenging by the day.

“It’s difficult, yeah,” Dingler said. “But there’s nothing -- we can’t dwell on it. Obviously, we can look back and see what we did wrong and correct things that we did wrong or we could do better, but we have to look forward to tomorrow and the final game of the series. We have to turn the page.”