Skubal's Seven Strong Innings Wasted as Jansen Surrenders Walk-Off Homer

Tarik Skubal threw 91 pitches across seven innings Tuesday night in Atlanta and left the mound with a 3-2 lead. Detroit Tigers closer Kenley Jansen needed just two batters to give it back.

The Tigers built their advantage early. Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson hit a two-run home run — his ninth of the season — in the bottom of the ninth to end it, 4-3, but the story of how Detroit arrived at that final at-bat starts in the second and third innings.

Detroit trailed 2-0 after Atlanta shortstop Ozzie Albies lined a two-run homer to left in the bottom of the first, scoring Drake Baldwin ahead of him. The Tigers answered in the top of the second: Detroit shortstop Kevin McGonigle lined a single to center fielder Michael Harris II, scoring Wenceel Pérez and moving Jace Jung to third. A groundout by Detroit's Gleyber Torres brought Jung home to tie it at two. Then in the top of the third, Detroit left fielder Riley Greene launched his fourth home run of the season to center, putting the Tigers ahead 3-2.

Skubal protected that lead for the next four innings. The right-hander finished the seventh cleanly — seven innings, five hits, two earned runs, seven strikeouts, 91 pitches. At 13 pitches per inning, he never let the game get complicated. Manager A.J. Hinch pulled him after a full workload.

Detroit reliever Kyle Finnegan took the eighth in a genuine leverage spot. He struck out Harris and got Yastrzemski on a flyout to Greene in left, but then issued back-to-back walks — one overturned on a challenge to Dominic Smith, then one to Ronald Acuña Jr. — to put runners at first and second. Drake Baldwin grounded into a fielder's choice to strand them both, Finnegan to McGonigle to Spencer Torkelson, and Finnegan was credited with the hold.

That left Jansen with a one-run lead and three outs to close it out.

He didn't get one. Albies opened the bottom of the ninth with a walk. Two pitches later — metaphorically speaking — Olson drove a fly ball to right center for his ninth homer of the season, a two-run shot that scored Albies and turned a 3-2 Tigers lead into a 4-3 Braves walk-off. Jansen recorded no outs, faced two batters, and was charged with both runs on 11 pitches.

Skubal's seven innings, Greene's third-inning homer, McGonigle's run-scoring single — all of it absorbed by a single swing in the ninth. The bullpen held through eight and then didn't survive the ninth's first batter reaching base.

Was Jansen just beaten by a great hitter on a good night, or is this a reliever the Tigers can trust in the final inning of a one-run game?