DETROIT — Let’s compile a partial list of all that has happened since the Detroit Tigers started a six-game homestand Friday.
— They went 2-4, dropping their season record to 18-20.
— Jack Flaherty endured a disastrous start and finally shared his strife in an emotional postgame interview.
— Tarik Skubal, the team’s greatest asset and incomparable ace, went on the injured list and had surgery to remove loose bodies from his throwing arm.
— Framber Valdez, the team’s marquee free-agent addition, was ejected after throwing a pitch at Boston Red Sox’s Trevor Story and suspended five games. Manager A.J. Hinch was also handed a one-game suspension in the wake of Valdez’s actions.
— The Tigers fired their Triple-A manager in the wake of another human resources investigation related to sexual harassment allegations, a problem that has plagued the organization off the field.
— Beloved infielder Zack Short returned to the team, in desperate need of depth, for the first time since 2023. Short, who profiles more as a Four-A infielder, was promptly designated for assignment only days later.
— And oh yeah. Power reliever Will Vest went on the injured list and is getting further evaluation for a mysterious forearm issue. All-Star second baseman Gleyber Torres went on the IL with a mild oblique strain. The Tigers ended the homestand with 14 players on the major-league injured list.
“I think we’re all tired of it, and it’s OK to admit that, provided it doesn’t bleed over into the game,” Hinch said of the injuries. “I probably shouldn’t even use the word bleed. That feels bad enough as it is. … Every manager will sit up here and say, ‘It’s our turn.’ … It’s a tough season to navigate. Some days are tougher than others.”
Wednesday’s game against the Red Sox briefly had the makings of a better night. Flaherty rebounded from a series of poor performances by striking out the first five hitters he faced. He ended his evening with 10 strikeouts and only one walk, a needed improvement for a command-oriented pitcher who entered the outing tied for the league lead in free passes.
“A lot better job,” Flaherty said, “of getting ahead and filling up the strike zone and being on the attack.”
Flaherty pitched five innings and surrendered four runs, only two of them earned. In the third inning, Spencer Torkelson dropped a pop-up near the first-base dugout. Given another life, Caleb Durbin ripped an RBI double down the third-base line. With two outs in the fourth, Colt Keith let a grounder from Carlos Narváez eat him up, allowing two runs to score.
A Tigers team that still prides itself on winning in the margins ranks at or near the bottom of the league in a handful of defensive metrics. The eye test has done nothing to dispel the ugly sample.
“A.J. preaches, and we preach, that if we want to be good, we have to take care of the baseball,” said bench coach George Lombard, who managed Wednesday in place of a suspended Hinch.
Red Sox hitters struck out 15 times, but the Tigers mustered only four hits and went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position in what became a 4-0 loss. The Tigers succumbed to a three-game sweep against a Boston team that recently fired its manager and overhauled its coaching staff, as if competing to see who could manufacture the most mayhem.
In baseball’s 162-game slog, each season has its own narrative arc. Most of these plots are less like James Patterson popcorn thrillers and more akin to “Ulysses” — ambiguous, nonsensical and filled with conflicting patterns.
The Tigers can attest to this well. This is a club that overcame 0.2 percent playoff odds two years ago, then barely staved off a monumental collapse after a magical first half in 2025.
“I just know the guys we have,” Lombard said. “We have a bunch of good guys that care. They want to win. They want to be the best they can possibly be. And then we’ve been through it before. Like we say, failing is the first step to learning how to do things. It’s the first step to success.”
However we look back on this time, there’s no denying it is a trying stretch, and perhaps only the beginning of a period that will test both the fortitude of the Tigers’ roster construction and the strength of the players’ resolve.
Likely without Skubal for months and without Valdez for his next start, Flaherty and Keider Montero are the only traditional starters currently in the rotation. The Tigers often tout depth and creativity as strengths. Flaherty pointed to the performance of Montero — a 3.48 ERA in six starts so far — and even a strong season debut from righty Ty Madden as beacons of hope, reminders that contributions often come from unexpected places.
But with much of the roster sequestered to the infirmary, some of the Tigers’ biggest contributors thus far might already be cooling off. Torkelson is back to a 4-for-32 stretch shortly after his home run barrage. Even wondrous rookie Kevin McGonigle is hitting only .185 over his past seven games.
Battle-tested as the Tigers are, a familiar question still persists even as a young team has grown up. Who is this group’s leader? There is a proverbial glue guy in Jake Rogers, a stoic warrior in Dillon Dingler and an energetic All-Star in Riley Greene. But with Skubal injured, the Tigers are without their trump card. And fun as this bunch can be, there’s still a lack of veteran presence on the positional side.
If there’s good news, it’s that Justin Verlander, Casey Mize, Troy Melton and others are working toward needed returns.
It’s May. Things are bleak right now. There’s a lot of baseball left.
“Every team I’ve been on, it’s a grind,” Lombard said. “It’s never easy. It looks like that from afar when you go on those winning streaks. … You find a way to just be resilient and win games.”