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.

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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.  

HOUSTON – For the first time ever, it was Josh Hader against the Milwaukee Brewers in a save situation.

It looked pretty similar to how most of Hader’s showings with his former team did, too. 

One, two, three went the Brewers in the ninth inning Friday night at Minute Maid Park against Hader on 12 pitches with two flyouts and a strikeout to punctuate a 5-4 win for the Houston Astros. 

Hader, who tallied 125 of his 170 career saves and won three National League Reliever of the Year awards with Milwaukee, now has earned a save against all 30 MLB clubs. 

The matchup didn’t quite possess the same pizzazz as it would have last season when Hader, pitching for the team the Brewers traded him to, was on the San Diego Padres. But his two appearances against the Brewers in 2023 were in non-save situations. 

Back in his comfort zone and protecting a one-run lead late on a stormy evening in Houston, Hader looked like his old self and not the reliever who has been up and down this year with the Astros.

“He’s one of the best in the game,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “There’s no doubt about it. He’s one of the best in the game. “

Joey Ortiz put up a decent fight against Hader, taking the count full and on the seventh pitch lining out on a well-struck ball to right. But once Hader got that first out of the inning, it was a quick exit for Milwaukee. Blake Perkins popped out to second and Owen Miller, pinch-hitting for the .302-batting Brice Turang, to get a lefty-righty matchup, struck out on three pitches.

“Hader’s a tough at-bat for (Turang),” Murphy explained of the pinch-hit decision. “That’s a tough at-bat for lefties. We had prepped Owen before the game that if we get in that situation, to be ready.”

Freddy Peralta unable to keep the ball in the yard

Freddy Peralta has shown signs of being able to take the leap forward as a No. 1 starter this year, yet one important piece is eluding him: Pitching through the order a third time. 

After getting off to a rip-roaring start to the season with a 1.90 earned run average through four outings, Peralta has had a rougher go of things on the mound. 

With five more runs – all earned – in five innings Friday, Peralta now sports a 6.23 ERA over his last five starts. 

“It’s not typical of Freddy, but, again, he’s the guy you want out there,” Murphy said. “Anytime we’re playing, if he’s healthy I want him out there.”

The steady trend throughout this recent blip is an inability to avoid trouble once the lineup flips a third time. 

On April 25 against the Pirates, Peralta allowed two runs on a walk, RBI single and RBI double in the fifth, his final inning of the day.

He didn’t get a chance to face the order a third time against the Rays because he was ejected for hitting Jose Siri, but the next time out against the Cubs, Peralta gave up a two-run double, two walks and a run-scoring wild pitch in a decisive fifth. 

Then in his last time out against the Cardinals, Peralta allowed a two-run single in the fifth as soon as the order flipped and a RBI double in the sixth. 

It burned him against the Astros, too. 

With one out, one on and holding a 4-2 lead, Jose Altuve started Houston’s third turn through its lineup with an infield single, which in fairness was little fault of Peralta’s. But Jeremy Peña battled Peralta to a full count one batter later and golfed out a slider at the knees — but over the meat of the plate — 380 feet to left for a go-ahead three run blast. 

Peralta was more frustrated than usual following this loss. 

“Honestly, I thought I threw the ball really good today,” he said. “Sometimes things happen in the game that I can’t control. That’s it.”

Peralta felt off the bat that Peña’s blast, which traveled 380 feet at 98.2 mph off the bat and would have been a homer at 13 out of 30 ballparks according to Statcast, was staying in the yard. 

“The way that he hit it, for me, I don’t know how hard he hit it but I didn’t look like it was gone,” Peralta said. “I thought it was a fly ball – a regular fly ball.”

Turned out it wasn’t. 

And now, across Peralta’s last five outings, batters have hit .363/.462/.636 with three doubles, a homer and four walks in 22 at-bats. 

Peralta’s velocity is maintained in the later innings, if not even a tick higher than early on. The slider is still getting whiffs, but when batters are making contact the third time through, they’re squaring it up with an average exit velocity over 96 mph.

Neither Murphy nor Peralta identified what might be the malady for Peralta in those middle innings.

“I don’t think it’s reason to be concerned,” Murphy said. “I think any time he doesn’t blow through things, people are like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on?’ That’s not how it is. You have to understand the game. There are a lot of guys who are doing a lot of research on him and doing everything they can to put their A-game on him.”

Joey Ortiz continues to mash

Joey Ortiz’s glove was touted when he was brought over to Milwaukee from Baltimore in early February as part of the Corbin Burnes trade. 

Turns out the bat plays, too. 

Ortiz hit a go-ahead three run homer in the fourth before Peña reclaimed the lead for Houston an inning later. It was part of a game where Ortiz reached base three times and finished a triple shy of the cycle. 

With a single to lead off the seventh, Ortiz had reached base safely in eight consecutive plate appearances. 

His lone out of the day was even an impressive battle with one of the game’s in Hader that ended in loud contact. 

“He’s looked great,” Murphy said. “He really has. Both offensively and on defense. He’s stepped up.”

MINNEAPOLIS — When it comes to warm days like Friday, there may be no two bigger fans than Anne Harvey’s pups Lou and Leland.

The three played fetch at Lake Harriet, but not before a little tug of war over the stick.

“It’s their favorite thing. They just love getting in the lake as much as they can,” said Harvey.

Harvey said she will take this weather, over the summers in her former home.

“We were living in Texas for four years and I can’t do 115-degree summers anymore, so I’m pretty happy with anything that’s not that,’ said Harvey.

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While thermometers may read low 80s in cities like Minneapolis, water temperatures still have a little catching up to do.

“Cold at first,” said St. Paul native Jonah Brumbach.

 “It feels nice once you get used to it,” said Mia Brisbin, also from St. Paul.

Al and Carley Watts are enjoying the weather with their 2-year-old grandson, Alec.

“We got to spend the day with him and promised him we’d go to the park and have some popcorn,” said Al Watts.

The Twin Cities’ above-average temperatures Friday continue a spring trend. April was about two degrees above average, while May, so far, has been doubled at four degrees above average.

Minnesotans know, when we have days like this, you must take advantage.    

“Get out and enjoy it as much as you can,” said Harvey.