DETROIT — Each day, Detroit Tigers players and coaches meet before the game. Often there is a theme to these summits. Maybe bunt defense one day, relays the next.
Particularly with a team that now has seven rookie position players on its roster, communication from staff to clubhouse is important. Tigers coaches rehash plays from the day before: Three good plays, three bad ones. Everything is a teaching tool.
One August afternoon in Seattle, Tigers third-base coach Joey Cora was particularly impassioned. For much of the season, the Tigers were stale on the basepaths. They still rank toward the bottom of the league in steals. When veterans such as Mark Canha and Gio Urshela were still around, their roster had little top-end athleticism outside of Parker Meadows.
A team with fading hopes staked to winning on the margins needed to do better, to be better. So Cora launched into his soliloquy.
“It was an intense meeting, to say the least,” Meadows said more than a month later.
The trope of team meetings and resulting catharsis is so often overplayed in situations like these. And yet … since August, no team has been better at sending runners from first to third on singles than the Tigers.
For the season, their 49 percent rate at taking extra bases — advancing more than one base on a single or more than two bases on a double — is the best in all MLB.
They have thrived in both small details — secondary leads, balls in the dirt — and big moments. The Tigers beat the Yankees in the Little League Classic when Zach McKinstry wheeled around third on a Meadows grounder to left field. Last week in Kansas City, they usurped the Royals thanks in part to Jace Jung’s limbo-like slide under Salvador Perez’s glove.
“Ever since then,” Meadows said, “we’ve trusted (Cora) and been able to do a really good job on the bases.”
As the third-base coach, Cora is a lightning rod in a role that should come with that phrase in its job description. It is a gig that comes with built-in criticism. You are either too aggressive or not aggressive enough. Jim Leyland often regales with tales of his days coaching third for the Chicago White Sox. Like Leyland back in the day, Cora veers toward the most aggressive end of the baserunning spectrum. He waves runners with such fervor his rotator cuff should be a concern.
The mindset was drilled into players beginning in spring training. Now in September, aggression is second nature. During that series in Kansas City, Matt Vierling was rehashing a situation where Royals runner Garrett Hampson held at third on a fly ball to right field. “We would have been sent, I know that,” Vierling joked.
Not all Cora’s decisions work out. Some, like when Spencer Torkelson fell rounding third after Cora failed to apply a timely stop sign during that Royals series, are undeniable mistakes. But all season, the numbers have shown the Tigers’ approach has been worth it. They have made 14 outs at home plate. But advanced metrics rate them as worth 4.4 runs above average on the bases, ranking 12th in the league. The good has outweighed, and can also be a product of, the bad.
“You got to risk something in order for something to work out,” manager A.J. Hinch has said time and time again this season.
Talking about Cora this week, Hinch acknowledged the consistent fearlessness. He also added: “It’s not by accident. He’s not reckless. He’s an incredible third-base coach because of his preparedness and what he studies about the outfielders, what he studies about our runners, what he demands of guys, how he communicates with players. … He’s impacted our style of play and our toughness, and our response to adversity is very consistent because of the way he coaches.”
Funny, then, how season-long themes can coalesce in crunch time.
To understand how the Tigers rallied to beat the Rays 4-3 on Thursday, their latest pulse-altering win, you have to think back to that meeting in Seattle, to all the runners thrown out at home and to all the ones who were safe and the celebrations that ensued.
The Tigers trailed 3-2 entering the eighth inning. There was one out when Riley Greene singled on a grounder into center field. With Matt Vierling at the plate, Greene read a ball in the dirt out of Garrett Cleavinger’s hand. Although the ball did not trickle far from catcher Ben Rortvedt, Greene dashed toward second, slid headfirst, safe by heartbeat.
“I saw it kick away, and I just took off,” Greene said. “The extra 90 feet is always huge in those situations.”
Vierling, a player who epitomizes the team’s “Gritty Tigs” moniker, then worked his second walk of the day. It set the table for rookie second baseman Colt Keith, who fought off sinkers on his hands and finally muscled a blooper into shallow center. Greene read the ball off Keith’s bat well.
To no surprise, Cora wheeled him to the plate. “I know that I’m going 10 times out of 10, especially with Joey over there,” Greene said.
A throw from the rocket-armed José Siri in center field bounced on the grass, slightly up the line. Greene again slid and caked his jersey with dirt. The game was tied.
Not to be overlooked, Vierling also moved from first-to-third as he has so many times this season. His rate of taking extra bases ranks fourth in the American League. Only three AL players have gone from first to third on singles more times than he has (15) this season.
In the dugout, rookie Justyn-Henry Malloy stood near the bat rack, waiting. Hinch inserted Malloy for Kerry Carpenter to face the left-haded Cleavinger. Malloy worked in a full count, then lifted a fly ball to center, deep enough to score Vierling, who barreled into the plate, pumped his fists and howled as the Tigers took the lead.
HOW GRITTY ARE THE TIGS??? pic.twitter.com/GpWfgSyyFa
— MLB (@MLB) September 26, 2024
Vierling played left field, third base and also made his season debut at first base in a game where Hinch had emptied his bench by the end of the eighth inning. Unsung in a month where so many Tigers players have produced staggering storylines, Vierling was last season’s Heart and Hustle Award nominee, a throwback player who has upped his power to hit 16 home runs but not lost an ounce of his dogged determination.
“It doesn’t get overlooked by us,” Hinch said. “We don’t talk a ton about him because he’s steady, he does really simple things very easily and always finds a way to contribute to a win.”
Before that bottom of the eighth, Journey played over the sound system at Comerica Park like it does every game.
Just a city boy.
Born and raised in South Detroit.
A matinee crowd belted the chorus of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” and more than ever, the hackneyed words felt prescient. After the comeback, Jason Foley shut the door in the ninth, and the Tigers went on to win for their 30th time in 41 games. Their magic number is down to two. Eight games out of a playoff spot before Cora’s impassioned lecture in Seattle, a clinch could come as soon as Friday.
“I would say I’ve seen crazier,” Greene said, “but I haven’t.”
(Top photo: Duane Burleson/Getty Images)
