It's deja vu for Tigers after 20-K nightmare

CHICAGO -- The Tigers have been here before, tipping their caps at a 20-strikeout performance.

They were in the batter's box at Tiger Stadium when Roger Clemens fanned 20 in a five-hit shutout on Sept. 18, 1996, one of the final games of Alan Trammell’s Hall of Fame career. They were in Washington 20 years later when ex-teammate Max Scherzer fanned 20 against a lineup that included Miguel Cabrera, J.D. Martinez, Ian Kinsler, Victor Martinez and Justin Upton.

Reynaldo Lopez wouldn’t seem to fit the conversation. And to be fair, he accounted for 14 of the Tigers’ 20 strikeouts Sunday in their 4-1 loss to the White Sox. But for Cabrera, who struck out three times against Scherzer that night in 2016 and had fanned three times against only one pitcher since, Lopez was worthy of respect.

When a reporter noted that it had to be frustrating, Cabrera asked, “Why?”

“When you face a guy like that, and he don't give you too many chances, you gotta tip your cap," Cabrera said.

For Cabrera, it was a comparable feeling to that night against Scherzer. It was no comparison to the performance they saw from Lopez last Sunday in a 4-3 win in Detroit. They hit him for seven hits over six innings that day, but they also struck out eight times, all but one of them swinging.

"Pfffft … different guy,” Cabrera said. “He was a different guy today. I saw the guy that I faced the first time I faced him."

That version of Lopez two years ago had electric stuff but little ability to command it. The pitcher the Tigers saw Sunday had both.

"Some days you can kind of eliminate one of his pitches, and he had everything going today,” said Grayson Greiner, whose second-inning RBI single off Lopez accounted for Detroit’s lone run. “He had the fastball up to 98, and he was throwing his curveball and slider down and away and mixing his changeup in there. He had elite stuff today."

Lopez racked up 24 swinging strikes, 17 of them on a four-seam fastball that topped out at 97.6 mph, according to Statcast. All but two strikeouts were on swings. Thirteen of his strikeouts -- including all three of Cabrera -- came on the fastball, tying him for most since pitch-tracking began in 2008.

“It was hard,” Cabrera said, “because he can throw his fastball 95 [mph] with sink and he can finish it with 98 straight. Today it was really good."

Of the few balls the Tigers got into play off Lopez, most were fly balls. Their two grounders produced their lone run in the second inning -- Ronny Rodriguez reaching on a Tim Anderson error, then moving into scoring position for Greiner’s single through the right side.

That was Detroit’s last hit. By Lopez’s fifth inning, the Tigers’ best hope to rally was arguably not to swing.

“Stuff-wise, it feels like everyone nowadays throws 95-98,” Greiner said, “but the fact that he was able to move it in and out, up and down, and mix in his other pitches, it was tough to hit. It's tough to hit when a guy's able to do that.”

Detroit went 11 batters without a ball in play -- eight strikeouts, three walks -- between Niko Goodrum’s flyout leading off the fourth inning and Rodriguez’s lineout to center in the seventh inning off Jace Fry. Detroit walked twice in the sixth without Jeimer Candelario or Goodrum swinging at a pitch.

“You hope you make in-game adjustments and see the ball,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “But I'm not up there hitting, so I don't know what it looks like.”

Lopez stranded his walks with strikeouts of Nicholas Castellanos looking, then Cabrera and Brandon Dixon swinging, pushing him to the highest strikeout total for a pitcher against the Tigers since Scherzer.

Cabrera struck out three times in a game for the first time since July 23, 2017. Lopez became the first pitcher to strike out Cabrera three times in a game since former White Sox great Chris Sale on Aug. 3, 2016.

A pair of strikeouts from Fry in the seventh inning, Kelvin Herrera in the eighth and Alex Colome in the ninth pushed the team total to record territory. Seven times since 1908, a Major League team has compiled 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. The Tigers have been on the hitting end of three of them.

Those previous teams were built to swing big for power. These Tigers under Gardenhire’s direction have tried to put balls in play and make defenses work. If there’s frustration, it’s for that.

"Some days he's going to have his stuff, and some days you're not gonna have yours," said Gordon Beckham, one of two Tigers with four strikeouts Sunday. "And it seemed like that was one of these days. He was good. We were bad. And we needed to be better."