DETROIT -- Max Clark was still beating himself up for a fourth-inning miscue in center field as he prepared for a second at-bat against Rays lefty Ian Seymour an inning later. He didn’t care that Liam Hicks’ line drive had taken a strange enough hop that it changed direction and bounced behind him as he charged it. He expects to make that play.
As Clark’s drive off Seymour’s hanging sweeper landed in Comerica Park’s right-field seats for a go-ahead two-run home run, his only concern was to complete his trip around the bases. He’d watched the ball for so long to see if it cleared the right-field fence that he didn’t realize he was still carrying his bat as he neared first base.
“As soon as I saw [Rays right fielder Jonny] DeLuca fully turn around, I got pretty excited. I was pretty geeked,” Clark said of his second Major League homer. “Needed it, for sure.”
As he pointed to the Tigers' bullpen in left field to recognize them, he didn’t realize he was nearing the runner in front of him, Javier Báez.
“I had no idea,” he admitted. “I completely blacked out. The crowd was really cool. That was a really cool moment. And I look up and I can see his numbers within, like, touching distance, and I started to panic and slow down a little bit.”
Welcome to the youthful enthusiasm of the new-look Tigers, who continue to linger around the AL Wild Card chase despite a six-game losing streak that ended with Tuesday’s 4-1 win. They will make some mistakes, but they’ll also have nights like this when young talent wins out.
Some of these guys were still teenagers in the Minor Leagues when the Tigers rallied out of nowhere down the stretch to win a Wild Card spot in 2024. Just seven players on Detroit’s active roster remain from that ‘24 run. But it’s serving as an inspiration.
“We needed [a win] for sure, but the vibes have never wavered,” Clark said. “We know how good this team is. We know we have the opportunity to do something. We also know we have better odds than they did in ‘24. Obviously I wasn’t here, but I watched it.
“Anything’s possible in this game. That’s why you play 162, and we’re going to play the full 162.”
Jackson Jobe was part of that 2024 team, a late September call-up summoned into the bullpen for his MLB debut and then into the playoffs. He’s now one of Detroit’s most important starters despite just four starts back from Tommy John surgery.
He walked three of the 19 batters he faced Tuesday in his struggle for command, but he also racked up four strikeouts against the American League’s toughest lineup to fan. Two of those strikeouts came on a curveball he’d tinkered with just a day earlier and turned from a throwaway pitch his last couple starts into a 85-87 mph buckler.
“I kinda messed with it a little bit yesterday,” Jobe said. “I didn’t really know what I was going to get going into today, but I was really happy about that.”
Another strikeout came on a 95 mph heater that froze Richie Palacios with the bases loaded, part of a fourth-inning escape that kept Detroit close while showing Jobe’s mettle. He can light up Statcast when he’s on his game, but Tuesday was a combination of pragmatism and improvisation.
“Just figuring out what works, trying different stuff today,” Jobe said. “Continuing to try sinkers to lefties, trying the new curveball. The changeup’s been god-awful, so I’ll figure out something to do for that next outing probably. I was away from the game for a year, so just trying to get the feel back for some stuff.”
Clark hit his first MLB homer on Aug. 1 against the Athletics in Sacramento, then had gone homerless for the past few weeks. He’d tested the depths of Comerica Park a couple times, but had done most of his damage slashing the gaps. That changed when Seymour, who had tossed two scoreless innings since taking over for opener Casey Legumina, left a sweeper over the plate that had been intended for the outside corner.
Jobe got a no-decision for his 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball, but lefty Drew Sommers retired all five batters in relief of him to earn his first big league win against the team that drafted him in 2022 and then traded him to Detroit 18 months ago for Mason Englert.
Of course they celebrated that.
“It was a good time,” Clark said. “There’s a rookie standard with that.”