Big first inning propels to Cubs to a laugher

The Detroit Tigers looked to follow up Monday night’s thrilling win with another on Tuesday night on the north side of Chicago. Instead, the Cubs pantsed the Tigers to the tune of an 11-2 drubbing.

Framber Valdez got the start for the Tigers, and after Monday’s game in which the bullpen pitched a total of six innings, the Tigers hoped Valdez could give them some length. He’d gone at least six innings in four of his previous five starts, and he was coming off seven sparkling innings against the A’s in which he’d given up a meagre three hits, surrendering a single run, walking nary a batter and whiffing nine. Of course, the Cubs are not the A’s. Spoiler alert: he absolutely did not give the Tigers length on Tuesday night.

Facing the Tigers was tall lefty David Peterson, who’s been with the Cubs for less than a month; he was traded to them by the Mets near the end of June for Cole Mathis. He broke into the major leagues in 2020 with the Mets, and was an All-Star in 2025; it’s been a rough year for him, though, and perhaps the Mets and Cubs both thought a change of scenery would do him good. His previous outing righted the ship a bit, though: he went five innings in Baltimore and gave up one run, but he walked four in the process.

It was a long, fateful first inning: Pete Crow-Armstrong led off by smacking a triple to the right-field corner; Seiya Suzuki walked and Alex Bregman wore a fastball to load the bases. Lefty-masher and Old Friend™ Carson Kelly followed, and he poked a two-run single through the right side; Michael Busch did the same to score Bregman for a 3-0 lead, and Nico Horner singled up the middle to reload the bases. A short fly ball to right field was blown in by the wind as the Tigers’ infield stared at it expecting it to head out to Malgeri in right. Instead, it fell like a stone into shallow right field and put the Cubs went up 4-0. After a popup and a strikeout, Valdez walked Crow-Armstrong and that was it for him, departing after two outs, a 5-0 score on the board, and the bases loaded. The recently-recalled Ty Madden came in, walked Suzuki but got Bregman to fly out to centre, and it was a 6-0 game.

Valdez’s final line: 2/3 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 2 BB, 1 HBP, 1 K. Yikes.

The wind was blowing in and was knocking fly balls down, especially to left field, with extreme prejudice: a couple of fly balls hit by the Tigers in the top of the second inning alone, which probably would have been home runs on Monday night, were caught well short of the fence.

The Cubs added-on in the second with a walk, stolen base, and single for a 7-0 score. Madden was slogging through, walking a few guys; Peterson was having a relatively easy go of it, slicing through the Tigers’ lineup like a hot knife through a warm wheel of Brie.

In the fifth, Brenan Hanifee replaced Madden, and within three pitches he gave up a single and a home run for a 9-0 score. But he had a 1-2-3 sixth, so that was nice in terms of pacing.

In the seventh Dillon Dingler led off with a walk, and after a strikeout and flyout, Matt Vierling singled and Dingler got to third base. Would the Tigers finally get on the board? No, they would not! Crow-Armstrong made a nice basket catch in centre to end the inning.

The Tigers waved the white flag by putting Zach McKinstry on the mound to chuck some eephuses below 40 mph, but he zipped an 81-mph fastball in there too. The Cubs tacked-on a pair of runs to make it 11-0, and I was starting to think the Tigers might not win this one.

Jake Rogers and his knuckleball took to the mound for the eighth and he struck out two batters. Holy mackerel!

Our All-Star catcher managed to get the Tigers on the board in the ninth: Hao-Yu Lee singled to lead off the inning, and Dingler sliced a home run through the wind to narrow the gap to 11-2. With two outs the Tigers loaded the bases and had the tying run, well, firmly on his behind in the dugout, but McKinstry flew out to left and that was, mercifully, the game.

The finale and rubber match is Wednesday night at 8:10 pm EDT. It should have been a day game, but I guess the national-television powers-that-be decided the Tigers didn’t need to get home at a reasonable time after a road trip.

Final score: Cubs 11, Tigers 2

NINE-DART LEG ALERT

Magnificent. Cool as a cucumber. Look how tightly-clustered those triple-twenties are, too.

Numbers and Such

• In last night’s game, when Pete Crow-Armstrong took second base in the bottom of the ninth to put runners on second and third with one out, at that point the Tigers had a 16% chance of winning. So, roughly five times out of six in that situation, the Cubs win. But they didn’t!
• Spencer Torkelson has been famously terrible at the plate with the bases loaded; including last night’s two-run single, he has been 4-for-38 for a .105 batting average (.323 OPS).
• You know who the opposite of Torkelson is? Well, it may not be the exact opposite, but Pat Tabler comes close: .489 BA and 1.198 OPS in 109 plate appearances with the bases loaded over his career.
• Marshall McLuhan was born on this day in 1911. This writer and philosopher had insightful and informative views on media, and coined the phrase, “The medium is the message.” As media continue to evolve and shape our views — sometimes in positive ways, sometimes not — I’d say his idea is as true now as it ever has been.