DETROIT — Brant Hurter was cruising.
Having entered the game in the second inning in relief of fellow rookie Keider Montero, the 26-year-old southpaw had navigated three-plus frames in the early stages of Detroit’s 3-0 victory over Cleveland in Game 3 of the ALDS without much trouble. The Tigers’ hitters had provided a couple of runs of support, extending the leash for manager AJ Hinch to let Hurter collect as many outs as possible before making another call to the bullpen.
But in the top of the fifth, Cleveland had something cooking. After Hurter retired catcher Bo Naylor for the first out, No. 9 hitter Brayan Rocchio and leadoff man Steven Kwan collected consecutive base hits. The lefty Hurter had appeared to be a favorable matchup against Cleveland’s pesky leadoff man, but Kwan spoiled that strategy.
“Not everything is perfectly as planned as you want it to be,” Hinch said ahead of this series when asked about his mantra for managing postseason games. “Somebody is going to punch you in the mouth at some point, and you gotta react.”
Hinch paused and then offered this follow-up: “That’s why we have Beau Brieske.”
It was a well-delivered line that elicited laughter in the room at the time, but it was rooted in the stone-cold truth: Time and again, when things start to go sideways, Hinch turns to Brieske.
So when Hurter found himself in trouble in the fifth inning Wednesday, Hinch knew exactly whom to call.
With David Fry scheduled to bat and the ever-dangerous José Ramírez on deck after that, Brieske trotted in from the bullpen to extinguish another fire. It took four pitches for him to dispose of Fry, a quick at-bat punctuated by a nasty slider for a swinging strike three.
“Beau comes in in a really big spot. In a perfect world, I’d love to bring these guys in, clean inning, big lead, deep breath and attack guys that they can match up with — and that never happens, especially in October,” the Tigers skipper said postgame. “So strike-throwing is key. Being at your best from pitch one.”
Brieske then relied on his changeup to neutralize Ramírez, who flied out harmlessly to center field to end the frame.
“You see the velocity up. You see the execution of big pitches to get the first batter out,” Hinch said afterward. “And our guys understand that they’re put in that position because every single person wearing the English D knows they can get the job done, and they continue to respond.”
Brieske wasn’t finished, either. He returned for the sixth inning and sat down Cleveland’s 4-5-6 hitters in order. He emerged again for the seventh, adding one more punchout before departing to a raucous ovation from a Comerica Park crowd of 44,885 — the largest attendance for a postseason game in ballpark history — loving every second of its first playoff game in a decade.
“He’s got great stuff. He’s got four good pitches,” catcher Jake Rogers told Yahoo Sports. “He’s got an electric heater that has really good vert to it, and it’s hard to catch up to. And then he’s got a sinker to keep righties honest and a changeup to keep both righties and lefties honest. It’s an all-around mix, and he throws 98, and it’s that mentality we preach of, like, hey, just throw strikes, and your stuff’s gonna get outs.”
Indeed: This is why the Tigers have Beau Brieske. It was his fourth appearance this October, and he has yet to allow a hit.
Not bad for a 29th-round draft pick out of a Division II school.
Brieske and Hurter were the headlining acts in Detroit’s latest postseason victory fueled by a pitching staff deployed in unpredictable fashion. Montero was announced as the starting pitcher Wednesday morning, and considering his admirable performance in a rotation role for the Tigers in the second half, he seemed primed to give Detroit some length from the beginning of the game.
But as with any Tigers game not started by Tarik Skubal, there’s no way to really know which pitcher Hinch will lean on most until the game actually unfolds. In this case, it was Hurter who emerged as the so-called “bulk guy” after Montero completed a scoreless first inning with just six pitches.
It’s a role Hurter filled well in the regular season, compiling a 2.58 ERA in 45 1/3 innings across 10 games despite starting only one of them. When Detroit nearly threw a combined no-hitter against the Orioles in September, it was Hurter who recorded 17 of the 27 outs in the middle innings. In his postseason debut against the Astros, he collected five outs as one of seven Tigers hurlers in Detroit’s pitching chaos masterclass in Game 2.
On Wednesday, Hurter served as the bridge to Brieske and beyond, as the Tigers bullpen demonstrated its strength once again.
“He’s funky. Even for righties, it’s tough,” Rogers said. “I can’t even imagine being a lefty in the box. It’s sometimes hard to catch — which, when it’s hard to catch, it’s hard to hit.”
Offered Hinch: “I mean, obviously, with this type of strategy that we have, we can give different looks to different guys. You have a 6-foot-6 lefty [in Hurter] all the way to some fireball right-handers to [Tyler] Holton throwing backdoor cutters to Brieske throwing turbo sinkers and changeups.”
In the seventh, it was Will Vest’s turn to put the kibosh on a Cleveland rally. With two outs and runners on first and second, he entered to face Fry. Vest unleashed six 97-98 mph heaters, the last of which Fry connected with for a hard liner toward third base — only to see Vierling make a leaping snag to end the frame. It was that kind of day for the Guardians’ offense, a continuation of a frustrating stretch at the plate that has Cleveland’s season on the brink of elimination.
Since exploding out of the gate for five runs before recording an out in Game 1, Cleveland’s bats have gone ice-cold. The Guardians have scored just two runs in their past 26 innings, both of them in the sixth inning of Game 1. It’s a particularly concerning bit of deja vu considering the Guardians’ similar woes during their most recent postseason appearance in 2022. But this drought has reached previously unforeseen levels of offensive ineptitude: It’s the first time in franchise history that Cleveland has been shut out in consecutive postseason games.
Detroit’s lineup wasn’t especially explosive on Wednesday — Cleveland actually out-hit Detroit 6-to-5 — but the knocks were far more timely. Unlike in Game 2, when a 0-0 tie carried into the ninth inning until Kerry Carpenter’s epic swing against Emmanuel Clase, Detroit didn’t wait around to give its pitching staff some run support. Riley Greene provided a quick jolt in the bottom of the first with a base hit up the middle to score Parker Meadows, who led off the game with a single.
It was the first run driven in by Greene this postseason, perhaps a sign of things to come for the 24-year-old, whose rise from promising prospect to full-blown All-Star has been a pivotal development in Detroit’s ascent.
“He was under a lot of pressure this season at times, being the guy that every other manager was managing against,” Hinch said of Greene before Game 3. “They would bring in their best relievers, they’d bring in their lefty, they’d bring in whoever they could to deal with Riley, while the rest of the lineup was trying to figure it out. He didn’t change. He didn’t panic. He didn’t stress. He just tried to do his part.
“He’s one of the first guys that I met when I got the job because I knew, as the organization had told me, he’s a central part of what was going to go right moving forward, and they were absolutely correct.”
Vierling tacked on a second run with a sac fly in the third inning. Spencer Torkelson lashed a double to left field to score Detroit’s third run in the sixth, a welcome sight after the former No. 1 pick started his first October 0-for-14 with nine strikeouts. It wasn’t much, but Detroit has proven it can win games with a well-sequenced attack rather than an overwhelming offensive display. Cleveland’s lineup did the same over the course of the regular season, but it has failed to come through as the stakes have escalated. That’s a trend that will need to be quickly reversed if the Guardians want to push this series to a Game 5 back at home.
On Thursday in Game 4, it’ll be Tanner Bibee taking the ball for Cleveland, but even a strong effort from the right-hander could prove futile if the bats don’t wake up. Detroit, meanwhile, will once again roll out an undetermined sequence of arms. That’s just the way they like it.
The Tigers are one win away from the ALCS, with a chance to punch their ticket to the next round at home on Thursday. For Rogers, the Tigers’ longest-tenured player and the only one left from the 2019 team that lost 114 games, Game 3 was a tremendous validation of what Comerica Park can offer as a postseason venue.
“It was incredible, man,” he said. “I grabbed Holton after the game when he was on the mound and said, ‘Man, soak this in.’ This doesn’t happen very often, and it’s really cool to see and hear the sights and sounds. …
“[The fans] were loud, and they did what they needed to do. They want to see playoff baseball here, and we brought ’em a good game.”