TORONTO — In Keider Montero’s return from the paternity list after the birth of his first child, he battled a pesky Blue Jays offense and helped keep the score close, but the Tigers’ bats sputtered and their six-game winning streak ended with a 5-1 loss at Rogers Centre on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old righty worked around traffic on the bases in all four innings he pitched, but the dam eventually broke in the fourth as a walk, double and sacrifice fly scored the two runs Montero allowed.
“You live in danger enough, you’re going to get beat,” said manager A.J. Hinch after the game.
Three consecutive errors in the sixth inning — two by John Peck at shortstop and another from Kevin McGonigle at third — gave the Blue Jays two more runs and pushed the game further out of reach.
“It’s definitely like one of the quicker infields I’ve played on, just because of the turf, and then the dirt’s hard as well,” Peck said before the game. “So those paired together definitely play a little quicker than other fields.”
Peck added after the loss that the sellout crowd of 43,463 was “definitely” the loudest he’s played in front of.
Both rookies were eaten up by ground balls, and Peck also bobbled one before throwing it wide of second and into foul territory down the right-field line, allowing the first run to score.
“We’re all human. Not going to make every play, but I mean those have got to be made,” Peck said.
Montero worked around a pair of line-drive singles in the first by striking out George Springer swinging at a high sinker and getting Kazuma Okamoto looking on a slider at the knees. Two runners reached via line-drive singles again in the second, but Montero escaped unscathed, winning a nine-pitch battle with Brett Bateman by freezing him with a low changeup. All told, he allowed six hits, walked two and struck out four.
“We were fortunate to still be kind of where we were because he does have some guts, and he does get some pitches,” Hinch said. “He got the double-play ball.”
Toronto kept fighting, grinding Montero for 89 pitches (55 strikes) as he often fell behind in the count; he threw a first-pitch strike to 10 of the 19 batters he faced.
“I think we started the day with just some spray pitching a little bit, and we were trying to hold on to part of the game and get Keider as long as we could into the game,” Hinch said.
Tyler Holton relieved Montero to start the fifth and gave up two more hard-hit singles. Bateman laced a ground ball to left, and moved into scoring position when Dillion Dingler failed to nab the lead runner on Nathan Lukes’ ensuing bunt attempt. That set the table for Springer, who smoked a 107 mph RBI single into right.
“I told [Dingler] in the dugout I thought it was a little aggressive, but you know it could be a great play,” Hinch said. “But the downside is, obviously, what happened when he had to rush a little bit, and probably the deciding factor is the fastest runner on their team is at first.”
The Tigers opened the scoring in the first when Colt Keith served a bloop double into left in his return to the lineup after resting a sore thumb for two days. Riley Greene scored Keith with a 105.8 mph line-drive single up the middle. But they were shut down for the rest of the game, as former Tiger Max Scherzer pitched five innings of one-run ball, and Toronto’s leverage relievers Mason Fluharty, Spencer Miles and Louis Varland combined for four scoreless frames.
“We had some quick at-bats, and we wanted to be aggressive against him,” Hinch said of Scherzer, whose fastball was down a tick from his season average of 93.1 mph. “He’s generally somebody that’s going to try to come at you a little bit and then get you to expand late in the count. So we were aggressive, and when you do that and don’t get the barrel to the ball as often as we’d like, then there can be some quick outs.”
Detroit was rolling, winners of an MLB-best six straight that also tied their season high. But it’s been a season of highs and lows for the Tigers, and they’ll now depart for a four-game series at Rate Field in Chicago on a more solemn note.