DETROIT — The Cleveland Guardians are confident that their pitching ace Tanner Bibee will help them even their American League Divisional Series in Game 4 Thursday against the host Tigers.
“We’ve got our guy going tomorrow who put together a fantastic effort every time out,” said pitcher Alex Cobb, who started and gave up three hits and two runs over three innings in Wednesday’s 3-0 loss in Game 3. “So look for him to go strong and hand it over to the best bullpen in baseball.”
Bibee made quick work of the Tigers in Game 1 while throwing 4 2/3 scoreless innings in the Guardians’ 7-0 series opener win. They need a similar performance against the Tigers, who lead the best-of-five series 2-1.
“We’ve done this all year,” said Cleveland outfielder Will Brennan. “You know a lot of people have never really believed in us until we made it to the postseason. So, again kind of just the norm — backs against the wall and show up tomorrow ready to go.”
Cleveland will need Bibee and to figure out a way to overcome the mastery of the Tigers’ pitching strategy, which has held the Guardians scoreless for the last 20 innings going back to Game 1.
The Tigers continued using pitching chaos in their win Wednesday, a strategy by Detroit manager A.J. Hinch that’s been successful for two months.
“When I saw the lineup they put out and kind of knew our plan, I kind of knew that was how it was going to unfold,” said Detroit reliever Brant Hurter, who replaced starter Keider Montero in the second inning Wednesday. “And it’s pretty cool that A.J. was able to make that happen and get a lot of guys out of their lineup, burn a lot of guys just by having Keider start and me coming in.”
The strategy included making sure Jose Ramirez did not see the same pitcher twice. It worked as he went 0-for-3 with an intentional walk.
“Part of the way our roster is built and the reason we’re maximizing strengths is we can do a lot of different things to hitters,” Hinch said. “It’s not easy to face four different guys, especially since I took one at-bat away from Ramirez, to your question. But you need the guys to do it, to throw strikes and pound the strike zone and go right after guys and get big outs.”
Right-hander Reese Olson will start for the Tigers. He pitched five innings of relief in Detroit’s 7-0 loss in the series opener, allowing one run on three hits while striking out four and walking one.
A win by Detroit would advance the Tigers to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2013. A loss for the Guardians would make them 1-6 over their last playoff series.
–Bob Tripi, Field Level Media
