Detroit Tigers (22-22) at Arizona Diamondbacks (21-24)

When: 6:10 p.m. Monday.

Where: Chase Field in Phoenix.

TV: Bally Sports Detroit, MLB Network outside Detroit market. (Have Xfinity but still looking for a way to watch BSD? Here are some other options.)

Radio: WXYT-FM (97.1). (Tigers radio affiliates).

Probable pitchers: Tigers RHP Jack Flaherty (0-3, 3.88ERA) vs. Diamondbacks RHP Zac Gallen (5-2, 2.86).

Weather: Indoors.

• Box score

Tigers lineup: TBA.

EVAN PETZOLD: Detroit Tigers stock watch: Three pitchers among best in bigs, but big bats aren’t hitting

Game notes: How many American Cy Young candidates can one team have?

Asking for a friend, whose name certainly doesn’t rhyme with Mack Blaherty. Look, Tarik Skubal is absolutely the front-runner, especially after Friday night’s performance in which he retired the first 13 batters he faced. And Reese Olson’s campaign is starting to pick up steam, even if he can’t pick up any victories.

And then there’s Mack Blaherty … er, Jack Flaherty, whose first season could hardly be going better. Ignore his 3.38 ERA (which is actually pretty good, when not compared to the aforementioned Tigers), and check out his 2.95 FIP. (That’s Fielding Independent Pitching — a measure of the three things pitchers can control — homers, strikeouts and walks.) Flaherty entered Friday ranked 11^th among qualified AL starters, ahead of previous Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes (3.52, 20^th) and just a bit behind teammates Olson (2.52, fourth) and Skubal (2.01, first).

Flaherty is also racking up the strikeouts; his 63 were good for third entering Friday (though Skubal shot past him against the D’backs). And walks? Flaherty has issued just six, third-fewest among AL starters qualified for the ERA title (behind only Tampa Bay’s Zach Eflin, with four, and Seattle’s George Kirby, with five). Take them together, and Flaherty has a ridiculous 10.50 strikeout-to-walk ratio, No. 1 in all of baseball. If Flaherty can keep up that pace, he’d finish third in MLB’s modern era —dating back to 1900 — behind only Bret Saberhagen (11.00 with the Mets in 1994) and Phil Hughes (11.63 with the Twins in 2014).

Of course, Flaherty is stuck behind the same wall as Olson — he has yet to pick up a victory in his eight starts, thanks to poor relief pitching and a lack of run support. Normally, we’d note the latter might not be a problem against the Diamondbacks, who entered Friday allowing 4.55 runs a game, 11^th-most in the majors this season. But they’ll be sending ace Zac Gallen to the Chase Field mound tonight.

Flaherty’s opponent, Zac Gallen, knows something about Cy Young talk; the right-hander is coming off back-to-back top-five finishes in NL Cy Young voting, including a third-place nod last season, when he had a 3.47 ERA with 220 strikeouts and 47 walks in 210 innings. His ERA has been better this season, at 2.86, but the peripherals have dropped off a bit, at 45 strikeouts and 14 walks in 44 winnings, for an FIP of 3.57 (good for 17^th in the NL).

After tonight’s game, the Tigers and Diamondbacks wrap up their series at 4:10 p.m. Sunday with righty Matt Manning taking on lefty Jordan Montgomery. After that, the Tigers zip east to open their three-game series against the Kansas City Royals on Monday night, while the D’backs head west for a three-game set against the NL West-leading Dodgers in Los Angeles.

TIGERS NEWSLETTER: What history tells us about Spencer Torkelson’s slow start

Live updates

For updates from and around the diamond, check it out on X.

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.  

DETROIT – A smoke shop on Detroit’s east side is shut down by the city after police say the business was caught selling marijuana without a license.

Vapes on Pointe on Warren Avenue had an orange sign across its door, sealing it shut.

Police say the shop was brought to their attention after community members reported a minor was sold marijuana at the establishment.

“My great nephew came up here and made some purchases, (he’s) 14 years old,” said Deboraha Underwood. “Weed, edibles, vape pen.”

Underwood got police and community activists involved.

“Our Vice unit did a subsequent investigation and was able to purchase some marijuana items from this location, at which time we made some arrests, executed a search warrant, and had to effectively close down the building,” said Detroit Police Commander Jevon Johnson.

Community activist Teferi Brent works with a group raising awareness about shops selling tobacco or marijuana products to minors.

“The police did the right thing in responding immediately,” said Brent.

Brent said this is the fifth shop they’ve helped police shut down.

“There may be 500 more,” Brent said. “If that’s what it takes to get these people to stop selling poison to our children.”

–> Activists rally against tobacco shops selling to minors in Detroit

As global temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, environmental factors in some urban communities are amplifying the heat even further.

Heat islands are defined as urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures than more rural areas due to the prevalence of buildings, roads and other infrastructure that absorbs and re-emits the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes such as forests and water bodies.

In 2023, the nonprofit Climate Central found that the urban “heat island effect” is elevating local temperatures by at least eight degrees Fahrenheit in 44 U.S. cities — including Detroit — exposing residents to higher risks of heat-related illness and higher cooling costs. In some cities, like Chicago, New York City and San Francisco, the effect can boost temperatures by 10 degrees or more, the organization reported.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jen Brady, a senior data analyst at Climate Central, joined The Metro on Friday to explain the heat island effect and offer suggestions for how to cool down urban communities in metro Detroit. She says many factors can contribute to the heat island effect, including the way a city is designed.

“Sometimes it’s just the design of the city, how the city grows. Detroit is an old city with lots of old buildings, old structures, stone structures left of pavement. So it may just be how the city has grown over the years,” Brady said. “A lot of northern cities are actually designed to hold heat in because we think of the cold weather in the winter. And we want to hold that heat in. But now that’s becoming a problem.”

Planting more trees in urban landscapes, having green roofs, and painting roofs and pavement lighter colors could help to reduce the heat island effect, Brady says, but emphasized that there must be a joint effort within the community to see real results.

“Because the other thing is, if you have a whole neighborhood, it’s very warm, and one person lightens the roof, it’s not going to really lighten the whole neighborhood. So, it really needs to be a big collective effort,” she said.

Many nonprofits and municipalities in the U.S. are already working towards warding off scorching temperatures by planting trees. Right here in Detroit, the nonprofit The Greening of Detroit plans to plant 70,000 trees over the next five years, which can help scatter the heat and provide more shade.

Use the media player above to hear the full interview with Brady.

More headlines from The Metro on May 17, 2024:

•  Today marks 70 years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Terah Chambers, the associate dean for Michigan State University’s College of Education, joined the show to discuss how the landmark case has affected the education system and its future direction.
• A group of metro Detroiters sent a letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan this week asking them to revisit ideas for the future of I-375 in downtown Detroit. Their concerns included a lack of community engagement, vision, safety, urban design, and restorative justice for those affected by the freeway’s original construction. Michigan Department of Transportation senior project manager Jon Loree joined the show to provide a response to the negative feedback from residents about the project.
• According to a new study from Michigan State University, many U.S. workers find the jobs available to them boring. WDET’s Bre’Anna Tinsley spoke with Kevin Hoff, lead researcher on the report, about what can be done to help bridge the gap between the workforce and the work. 
• The Detroit Women of Comedy Festival is taking place this Friday and Saturday at the Planet Ant Theatre in Hamtramck. The show’s producer, Kate Holmes, joined the show to share more about the unique event.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.