Graded: Pick No. 17. The bullpen the pick was built against threw 3.2 shutout innings
The call, committed before first pitch: Dodgers win. Confidence Low.
The result: Tigers 2, Dodgers 1. gamePk 824230, Final on the id.
Record: 9-8.
The pick lost to its own central argument
The whole case for Los Angeles was 2 rows of bullpen numbers. Detroit had blown more saves than it had converted, 27 for 55, and the theory was that a game with 2 rusty starters becomes a bullpen game, and Detroit loses bullpen games.
It became a bullpen game. Detroit won it.
| Saturday, after the starters left | IP | H | R | BB | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit: Holton, Sears, Jansen | 3.2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Los Angeles: Halvorsen, Vesia, Henriquez, Dreyer | 3.1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Jack Dreyer got 1 out in the 9th, walked 2, gave up 2 hits, and Kevin McGonigle singled Javier Baez home to end it. Kenley Jansen threw a third of an inning for Detroit and got the win against the club he spent a decade closing for.
Snell was better than the entry expected and it did not matter
The thing named as the scare was Snell's command: 7 walks in 18 innings since he came back, and a 4th inning where he loses the zone.
He walked 3 and struck out 10 in 5 innings, matching his highest strikeout total of the season in 1 fewer inning. It took him 99 pitches to get through 5, which is why he was gone after them.
| Blake Snell, Saturday | 5.0 IP | 3 H | 1 ER | 3 BB | 10 K |
|---|
Keider Montero, on 11 days rest, went 5.1 and gave up 1. The rust game the entry described did happen. Both starters were fine, both left early, and the game went to the part the pick had already called wrong.
What Detroit's night actually looked like
6 hits. 12 men left on base. A ground-rule double from Gleyber Torres in the 3rd, then nothing for 5 innings, then Freddie Freeman singled Alek Thomas home in the 6th to tie it, then nothing again until the 9th.
That is a club that scored 2 runs on 6 hits and won, which is the inverse of the last 2 weeks, where it kept out-hitting people and losing. Detroit is 63-72 with 595 runs scored and 525 allowed. That plus 70 against a losing record is still the largest gap between record and run differential in baseball, and Saturday is the kind of night that closes it a tenth of a win.
The pick was Low and it says in the entry why: a Saturday afternoon game between 2 pitchers on strange schedules is not a sure thing. That was right about the uncertainty and wrong about the side.
Sunday is Valdez against a Los Angeles starter still not named as of Saturday morning, and that one is already on the board.
Not betting advice.
Got a Detroit number you want looked at? Email projectunmuted@proton.me and it gets looked at properly. A stat somebody quoted that smells wrong, a thing you have always assumed about one of these 4 teams and have never seen checked. Every question that arrives is listed with its answer, including the ones where the answer is no.