This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Keider Montero can read the room. Tarik Skubal will rejoin the Tigers rotation on Saturday in Cleveland. Casey Mize is on track to do the same the next day. That makes six starters.
Add in a potential return for Justin Verlander, who just made his second rehab start for Triple-A Toledo, and the Tigers could potentially have seven starting pitchers. Or eight, if you count Ty Madden, which manager A.J. Hinch does.
”There’s a lot of names and a lot of quality pitchers in that mix,” Hinch said Thursday morning. “And we want our best pitchers to pitch.”
Even if the Tigers go to a six-man rotation in the near future, they could still end up with too many starters. Something has to give.
Montero, who got his chance as a starter this year when Verlander went on the injured list a week into the season, is making his best case to stick.
”I’m very happy having those guys coming back to pitch for us, that they’re healthy and they’re coming back sooner rather than later,” Montero said. “It’s not my call, it’s [the team’s] call to make a decision. But I just do my best, and I will not care if I stay in the rotation or go to the bullpen. As long as they give me the ball and give me the opportunity, I’ll do my best to help this team win.”
It’s the right thing to say, and why Montero is so beloved as a teammate, both with the Tigers and with Team Venezuela during their title run in the World Baseball Classic in March. But with a 3.61 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, .211 batting average allowed and just under six innings a start, Montero has made his case as a starter.
He doesn’t have the cachet of Skubal, Mize, Verlander, Framber Valdez or Jack Flaherty, but Montero has quietly been the steady workhorse of the Tigers staff.
Thursday’s six-homer outburst from Detroit’s offense overshadowed the work Montero did on the mound to quiet a Twins lineup that slugged six homers over the first two games of the series. Minnesota managed just four singles and a walk off Montero, and put only one runner in scoring position against him.
Montero pounded the zone for 17 called strikes across four pitch types. He picked up just seven whiffs on 46 swings, yet the Twins averaged just 84.5 miles per hour of exit velocity off him.
It was the second scoreless outing of six or more innings in Montero’s last three starts, and his fifth start this season of six or more innings of one-run ball or better. On the flip side, he has yet to allow more than four runs in an outing this season or exit an outing before the fifth inning, avoiding the so-called disaster start that can crush a bullpen.
“We know he can pitch,” Hinch said. “He’s a good arm and a good dude. He’s done everything that we’ve asked, and we’re factoring all that in.”
The mix of pitches is where Montero has shined this season. Last year, his only pitches with a positive run value by Statcast’s evaluation were his sinker (+4) and changeup (+1); his slider (-10), four-seamer (-2) and curveball (-2) were all negative. This year, his four-seamer (+4), changeup (+4) and sinker (+2) are all in positive territory, and his only pitch in negative territory is his curveball (-3).
”He’s becoming a more well-rounded pitcher,” Hinch said. “He’s got two shapes of breaking balls. He’s getting more confident with the change.”
Just as important, he has learned not only to throw his full mix for strikes, but also in segments of the strike zone.
“It’s been [about] pounding the strike zone, just not in the same zone, locating up side, down side, inside, outside, everywhere,” he said Thursday through interpretation from Tigers director of Spanish communications Carlos Guillen. “I want to attack every area of the strike zone.”
Said Hinch: “Early on as a young pitcher, he would just throw big-zone strikes. You want strike throwers, but then you start to refine it. You start to use your pitches correctly. You start to gain confidence in more than one way to get hitters out. That’s how you last deeper into games.”
Montero also cites the WBC with honing him into form before the season even started.
The other big difference Montero cites for his improvement? Opportunity.
“They have given me the chance,” he said. “They have given me an opportunity to prove what I’ve been working on since the offseason on my pitches.”
One way or another, that opportunity is going to continue.
”He’s going to empty the tank for this team, and that doesn’t get lost on us,” Hinch said. “He’s gone up, he’s gone down, and he’s always answered with the right attitude. Obviously we want to keep him in the fold and keep him going, because the way he’s throwing the ball, he deserves it.”