The Tigers lost again in the smallest possible margin and in the worst possible place for a team looking for a break. The Mets beat Detroit 3-2 in 10 innings Wednesday night at Citi Field, ending the game when Carson Benge rolled a ground ball up the middle against Drew Anderson to score the free runner.
It was the Tigers’ fifth walk-off loss of the season, another painful finish for a club that has now dropped seven of its last eight and slipped to 19-24. Detroit is 7-18 away from home, and the problems that keep dragging it back were plain again: the lineup stranded chances, the bullpen could not protect a late tie, and the offense never found enough behind Riley Greene, who had three hits and drove in both Tigers runs with a first-inning single.
Greene’s hit gave Detroit an early lead and, for a moment, looked like the kind of clean start the Tigers have needed during a stretch in which they have been struggling to score. But the game turned into a familiar script. Detroit finished 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, a number that matched the way the night felt — close enough to matter, not sharp enough to finish.
Framber Valdez made his first start back after serving a five-game suspension and gave Houston the kind of outing that should have been enough to steady things. He allowed five hits, all singles, and struck out the first two batters in the seventh inning before walking Luis Torrens. That opened the door for Carson Benge, whose opposite-field jam-shot flare into shallow left field extended the inning and helped keep the Mets alive. Kyle Finnegan then gave up Bo Bichette’s tying hit on a first-pitch slider in the seventh, and Detroit never fully recovered from there.
Valdez needed 106 pitches to get through his work, and he was credited with two strikeouts before the inning spun away. The best swing he allowed was not even a swing in the traditional sense. It was contact, and contact was enough. Valdez said afterward that those kinds of hits are part of the game and that it was surprising, but only part of the deal.
The Tigers are carrying more than a bad week. They had 17 players on the injured list entering Wednesday, and 11 of them would have been on the active roster if healthy. Gleyber Torres, Kerry Carpenter, Javier Báez and Parker Meadows were especially missed, and Zach McKinstry said the lineup has been left with players trying to do more than usual while gaps are being filled by whoever is available.
That pressure showed in the late innings. After the first inning, AJ Hinch said, the club left a bunch of runners on base. He said the team is fighting, but also that it is having a hard time getting to the finish line and feeling good. Hinch added that nobody is quitting, yet the club is pressing, swinging out of the zone and not swinging enough, all at once. “Right now it feels like all of the above,” he said.
Detroit’s manager also pointed to the broader problem. The Tigers have already been walked off five times this season, and this latest loss fits the pattern: a team that hangs around long enough to make the ending hurt, then fails to do the one thing that would change the result. Hinch said the club needs resolve to fight through it, and McKinstry put it more simply, saying the players doing well need to keep doing well while the pieces behind them step up a little bit.
For now, the Tigers keep leaving the field with the same question hanging over them — not whether they competed, but whether they can turn close games into wins before the season’s injuries and road losses define the race for them.
