DETROIT -- Of all the impressive numbers Gleyber Torres has posted in his case for an All-Star start at second base, one of them is a zero. That’s how many times he has struck out three times in a game as a Tiger.
The list of three-strikeout games this season included 369 different Major League players entering Friday, including 13 Tigers. Riley Greene has eight. Spencer Torkelson and Dillon Dingler have four each. Justyn-Henry Malloy, nicknamed the "Human ABS" (Automated Balls and Strikes) by teammates for his knowledge of the strike zone, had three during his 45 games with Detroit this season.
Torres has none in 70 games played this year. He’s not quite Luis Arraez, who has struck out just six times in 323 plate appearances all season entering Friday, but it’s an example of why Torres -- whose rate of 6.9 at-bats per strikeout ranked sixth-best among American League hitters entering Friday’s 4-1 loss to the Twins -- has been such a seamless fit with the dominate-the-strike-zone Tigers after signing a one-year contract last December, and why he’s a constant near the top of manager A.J. Hinch’s batting order.
“It’s a nice presence to have,” Hinch said a day earlier. “I know what I’m going to get in terms of effort. I know what I’m going to get in preparation. I know he’s going to understand and conduct at-bats. And everything that goes with what we get, the other side has to deal with him. So I know he’s a focal point for the other manager.”
Torres came perilously close to a third strikeout Friday, which is a credit to David Festa’s command over 5 2/3 scoreless innings. Torres took a slider on the outside edge for the second out of the first inning, then battled to a full count in the third before Festa flipped another slider -- this time around the outside corner -- to garner a call from home plate umpire Todd Tichenor. Torres hunched over in disappointment at the call to end the frame.
When Torres came back up for the sixth inning, whiffing on a first-pitch fastball and fouling off the next, he seemed destined for his first three-strikeout game since last Sept. 26 for the Yankees at Baltimore, and his first such game against one pitcher since a Max Scherzer 14-strikeout game with the Nationals on May 8, 2021. But after laying off an 0-2 slider, Torres went into battle mode.
Torres fouled off Festa’s 93 mph fastball at the top of the zone, then did the same when Festa tried to flip a slider into the upper outside corner. The 94 mph fastball over the plate got fouled off. Festa went to the changeup, the pitch that worked so well for him in his previous meeting with the Tigers in April, but Torres fouled that off, too.
On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Festa finally coaxed Torres to chase a slider down and off the outside corner. Torres not only got to it, he sent it back through the middle for a single on Festa’s 75th and final pitch of the night, ending Festa’s streak of 12 consecutive outs.
"What I’ve seen is, not a lot changes with Gleyber,” Hinch continued. “He trusts his routine. He trusts his setup. He trusts his eyes. When he has a rough at-bat, it never really goes anywhere. He doesn’t take it to his defense. He doesn’t take it to his next at-bat. And that’s veteran behavior, but it’s also not easy for everybody to just do that.
“I’m not surprised, because we felt like we signed a good player. But I admire him for his consistency. And that includes the walks, the long at-bats, the grind, the foul balls when he’s not even really trying to put it in play. He’s a tough out.”
Chasing Festa didn’t change the Tigers’ fortunes much. It just transitioned their challenge to a nasty Twins bullpen loaded with the big arms. One of them, Griffin Jax, faced Torres with one out and Colt Keith on third in the eighth inning.
Again, the Twins put Torres in a two-strike count, as the second basemen took a first-pitch strike and fouled off a third-pitch changeup at the bottom of the zone. Torres was set up for Jax’s sweeper, a pitch with a 42.4 percent whiff rate, but Torres declined to offer at back-to-back sweepers off the plate and in the dirt. With the count full, Jax tried to freeze Torres with a changeup on the inside corner, but Torres lined it back through the middle for an RBI single, the Tigers’ lone run of the game.