Tigers lose 14-8 slugfest to Rays

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Jun 20, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TAMPA, Fla. – This is what happens when a hot offensive team faces a pitcher searching for his game.

The Tampa Bay Rays, winners of six of their last eight games, KO’d Jack Flaherty in the third inning and beat the Tigers, 14-8, Friday night at George Steinbrenner Field.

Flaherty was charged with eight runs in just 2 1/3 innings. After a string of five strong starts, he’s been chased early in his last two with his ERA ballooning to 4.83.

He never seemed to get settled in this one, command-wise or stuff-wise. He walked three and struggled to put hitters away even when he got ahead in counts. The 10 balls the Rays put in play against him had an average exit velocity of 99.5 mph.

Just as damning, the 17 hitters he faced fouled off 19 pitches.

Yandy Diaz set the tone. He hit the first of his two home runs leading off the bottom of the first inning, sending a 93-mph four-seamer 409-foot over the wall in right-center. After Flaherty had fallen behind 3-0.

He needed 32 pitches to get through the first inning and when he finally got the final out, the Tigers were in a 4-0 hole.

After Riley Greene’s 432-foot, three-run homer to center brought the Tigers within a run in the top of the third, Flaherty could only get one out in the bottom of the inning.

A pair of walks contributed to his demise in the third, setting up a three-run double by Taylor Walls.

This was the ugliest manifestation of something Flaherty has wrestled with for most of the season. He’s being hit harder than he ever has in his career.

This was his 15th start – which, ironically, triggered a $10 million bonus, doubling his salary for 2026 -- and these were all career worsts coming into the game:

— Hard-hit rate (42.6%).

— Exit velocity (89.7 mph).

— Barrel percentage (11.1%).

— Sweet spot (41.6%).

— Balls in the air (64.7%).

— Balls pulled in the air (24.7%).

Only one of his pitches has a plus run value (slider), per Statcast.

Flaherty has been able to mitigate damage for the most part with a high strikeout rate (29%) and an uncanny ability to make big pitches in clutch moments. Before Friday, he’d held opponents to a .152 batting average and .484 OPS and 18 strikeouts with runners in scoring position, 2 for 19 with two outs and runners in scoring position.

The damn broke on Friday.

It was the most runs he’s allowed since he was tagged for 10 runs in 2 1/3 innings when he was pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals on May 4, 2023.

It was a huge night for Greene. He hit both his 16th and, in the eighth inning, 17th homers. In addition to the four RBI (59 on the season, 29 in his last 29 games), he also doubled, walked and scored three times. He also made a sensational diving catch, stealing extra bases from Diaz in that four-run third inning.

An RBI double by Parker Meadows and a sacrifice fly by Javier Baez in the sixth inning, got the Tigers within four, briefly.

Colt Keith lined a two-run homer to right field in the ninth, his sixth on the season and second in two games.

The Tigers (48-29), who gave up 16 hits, issued six walks and were charged with two errors, used four relievers to finish the game, which, after playing a doubleheader on Thursday, further strains an already weary bullpen.

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