Kansas City, Mo. — It’s been a long and winding road for Gage Workman since the Tigers drafted him in the fourth round in 2020. He was a Rule 5 pick of the Cubs last season, got released and picked up by the White Sox, released again and wound up back at Triple-A Toledo where he scuffled and ended up off the 40-man roster.
But that same road led him to the hero’s circle Sunday night.
His contract selected from Toledo earlier in the day after Kerry Carpenter was put on the injured list, Workman swatted a two-out, two-run, pinch-hit home run in the top of the sixth inning to break a 3-3 tie and pushing the Tigers to a 6-3 win in the finale against the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.
“I don’t even know who it was off,” said Workman, recovering from the traditional “beer” shower celebration. “I was just trying to go up there and do a job. That was a quick home run trot, right there. I home to home pretty quick.”
First big-league homer in his long-awaited Tigers’ debut. Storybook.
And sorely needed. The Tigers went into the game reeling from yet another injury and riding a five-game losing streak and the worst road record in baseball (6-16).
“A lot of good things happened today, with Gage’s pinch-hit being at the top,” manager AJ Hinch said. “There were a lot of contributions across the roster and we needed it. It’s been a tough week.”
Workman was one of nine players on the active roster Sunday who either started the season at Triple-A Toledo or in another organization. The Tigers (19-22) have spent the last couple of weeks just trying to weather the storm.
“We have guys here filling in for a large list of guys who are gone and that’s not changing,” Hinch said. “Those guys are injured and they are gone. Focusing on what is in front of you is way easier when you eliminate any negativity from the day. … There’s no evaluation that’s going to make that record change or make the situation change.”
Carpenter was the 17th player from the Tigers’ 40-man roster to land on the injured list. Eleven of those players would’ve been with the club on this road trip if they were healthy.
That’s a lot of missing pieces for a team whose strength is the sum of its parts.
“We have to deal with that reality,” Hinch said. “There’s no making up for lost time. That’s a wasted effort. You can’t change the things that already happened.”
What the long injury list does though is create opportunity for other players and Workman seized his.
“I just wanted to play my game and not do anything different than I had been doing,” said Workman, who was hitting .358 with a 1.003 OPS at Toledo.
Before he spoke to the media, he had to clip the tags off his newly-issued Tigers’ sweats. The home run ball, retrieved, was tossed to him over the scrum by equipment manager Dan Ross.
“It was a slider (off Royals right-hander Nick Mears),” Workman said. “I was trying to get something up in the zone. The slider started up in the zone and ended up down and in — good spot for a lefty. Off the bat I was like, I think I got him.”
The other by-product of the injuries, the Tigers are down to three healthy starters and one of them, Framber Valdez, was serving a suspension. So Hinch had to deploy another bullpen game, this one without a bulk reliever.
“You can’t script these games because you just don’t know how it’s going to go,” he said. “Two nights in a row I’ve been on the field in the first inning (making a pitching change), which is unexpected. Once you open the bullpen gate it never closes. We keep reading the game and rolling guys out.”
Brenen Hanifee and Brant Hurter got through the Royals lineup the first time and passed the baton to Drew Anderson with a 3-0 lead. He gave it back in two innings. Maikel Garcia doubled and scored in a two-run third inning and then he singled with two outs to tie the game in the fourth.
Lefty Enmanuel De Jesus, though, had his back. After Workman’s homer, De Jesus set down seven straight hitters, getting the game to Kyle Finnegan and Kenley Jansen and the back end of the Tigers’ bullpen.
“If Drew had dropped us off at a different spot, it could’ve been Ricky Vanasco or Burch Smith,” Hinch said. “But with the run of lefty-righty-lefty-righty (hitters), it was key for De Jesus to be able to control damage and control the game until we got to the top of their lineup and record outs. The game was short and if you are too aggressive, you run out of pitching.”
Finnegan escaped trouble with double-play balls in the seventh (getting Bobby Witt, Jr., to bounce into a rare 5-4-3 double-play started by Workman at third base) and in the eighth (Michael Massey). Hinch had Jansen warm for the lefty-swinging Massey and he took one step out of the dugout to make the change before changing his mind.
“Just a lot going on trying to get to the end of that game,” Hinch said with a wry smile. “I thought Finney had a really good chance to get Massey on the ground, whether it was a double-play or not. The decision point was, Kenley is going to come in and get balls in the air and Finney has a chance to get balls on the ground.
“I decided one step out of the dugout to stay with Finney.”
Good choice. That left the ninth to Jansen. Not only was he pitching for the first time in six days and just the second time in 11 days, he was pitching on Mother’s Day, two years after the death of his mother.
“Today is definitely a day of mixed emotions for me,” he said, after retiring the Royals in order for his seventh save. “It’s the second time I can’t say Happy Mother’s Day, but I know she’s good. It’s always good to go out and honor the game to her. And what a great way to do it by ending the losing streak.
“Happy flight and now hopefully we can get on track.”
@cmccosky
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.detroitnews.com ’
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