Jack Flaherty gives Tigers the start they needed, but offense leaves him stranded

Flaherty leaned on the four-seamer 56% of the time, throwing it 54 times. He used his slider 25% and his knuckle curve 19%. The mix was simple, but it worked. He produced 14 whiffs on 50 swings, good for a 28% whiff rate, and finished with a 31% called-strike-plus-whiff rate. For a pitcher who has had starts get away from him recently, that is the type of bat-missing stuff the Tigers needed to see.

The knuckle curve was his best swing-and-miss pitch by rate. Hitters swung at it 10 times and missed five, a 50% whiff rate. The slider was also useful, getting four whiffs on 14 swings and accounting for five of his 10 strikeouts. The fastball did not dominate in the same way, but it set the tone. He threw it for a 78% strike rate and used it heavily against both right-handed and left-handed hitters.

The first inning was Flaherty at his sharpest. He struck out Jarren Duran swinging, froze Contreras and got Wilyer Abreu swinging to strike out the side. He added two more strikeouts in the second, getting Trevor Story swinging and Yoshida looking. By the time he walked off the mound after the second, he had five strikeouts and had shown the kind of early-count intent that had been missing too often in his recent work.

The fifth inning may have been the best sign. After the two-run error in the fourth made it 4-0, Flaherty came back and struck out the side again. Duran, Contreras and Abreu all went down swinging. That mattered. Instead of letting the game unravel after the defensive mistake, he finished his night by overpowering the top of the Boston order.

There were still blemishes. The third inning was the one real inning where Boston strung pressure together. Mayer reached, Narváez was hit, and Durbin drove a ball to left for the RBI double. Flaherty then limited the damage to two runs, but the inning showed how thin the margin was with Detroit’s offense quiet behind him.

That was the larger issue. The Tigers had chances and did not cash them in. In the second, Riley Greene doubled, Zach McKinstry walked and Spencer Torkelson walked to load the bases with two outs, but Jace Jung lined out to right. In the third, Detroit had back-to-back singles from Colt Keith and Greene after Matt Vierling was thrown out trying to stretch a hit, but Dillon Dingler flew out to end the inning. After that, the offense faded.

So, no, this was not a clean box-score gem. Flaherty still allowed four runs, and the Tigers still lost control of the game. But context matters. He struck out 10, walked one, allowed only three hits and had two runs score because of an error behind him. His breaking balls missed bats, his fastball played well enough, and he gave Detroit a start it could have won with even a modest offensive night.

After the way his last few outings had gone, the Tigers needed Flaherty to look like a pitcher capable of stopping the slide.

He did his part.

The lineup did not.

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