It might be really early in the season, but that doesn’t mean the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City aren’t going through the midseason emotions of winning and losing streaks going into the third and final game of a three-game series in Detroit on Sunday.
The Tigers will certainly take the field on a more upbeat note, coming in on a four-game winning streak following a 7-4 victory over the Royals on Saturday.
Detroit gave up a 2-0 lead but rallied from a 4-2 deficit by scoring five runs in the seventh inning, the big blow being a grand slam by rookie Christin Stewart.
“Winning is a lot of fun,” Tigers right fielder Nick Castellanos said. “Right now, we’ve got a lot of good guys that are on the same page that are pretty much focusing on the ‘W’ at the end of the day. That’s a really good thing.”
Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire said the comeback on Saturday was an example of how positive of a mindset his team has had so far this year in getting off to a 6-3 start.
“They are pretty intense in the dugout,” Gardenhire said “We gave it up and they came back in (the dugout) and were hooting and hollering pretty good. We had good at-bats.”
Kansas City might be hooting and hollering to themselves at the moment, but if so, it is more out of frustration.
Since starting off with two wins to open the season, the Royals have lost five straight games.
But showing frustration, at least publicly, is the last thing Royals manager Ned Yost wants to do right now.
“That’s not going to do you any good,” Yost said. “If you get frustrated, it just makes things worse. If I get frustrated, then the players see that I’m frustrated, then they all of a sudden start pressing more because they don’t want this. They don’t like this. My job is not to get frustrated. My job is to continue to support and continue to lead these guys. They’re going to get through it. It’s a tough period right now, but they’ll get through it. They just have to keep battling.”
A big reason for Kansas City’s struggles has been a beleaguered bullpen, which gave up another lead on Saturday and has an earned-run average of more than 7.00 so far this season.
To try and snap the losing streak, Kansas City will turn to second-year man Brad Keller, a 23-year-old who is 1-1 with a 1.80 ERA in 10 innings pitched against the Tigers in his career..
The Tigers will counter with Tyson Ross, an offseason signee who lost his only start of the season on April 1 at the New York Yankees, giving up two runs and four hits in five innings of work.
Ross is 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA in 12 innings pitched during his career against the Royals.
Following Sunday, the Tigers will have a day off before welcoming in Cleveland for a three-game series.
Kansas City will head home to start a four-game series with Seattle on Monday.