Rangers slug four homers off Jack Flaherty, snap Tigers' five-game win streak

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on May 10, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — Jack Flaherty knows the formula for his own success. He’s certainly demonstrated it enough over the course of his career, especially last season when he helped the Dodgers win the World Series.

He even talked about it on Friday.

“Do the small things right,” he said. “Control the zone, make pitches and don’t complicate too much. It just comes down to execution and making pitches. That’s kind of what it’s all about.

“Make pitches and good things are going to happen. You don’t make pitches, things go awry.”

He did not control the zone Saturday and didn’t make nearly enough (good) pitches. Things went awry.

The Texas Rangers swatted four home runs off him in three innings on their way to snapping the Tigers' five-game win streak with a 10-3 romp before a sellout crowd (40,844) on Tarik Skubal bobblehead night at Comerica Park.

Josh Smith and Corey Seager hit solo homers in the first inning. Smith hit a 2-2 slider that Flaherty left in and over the plate. Seager whacked a 3-1 fastball (93 mph).

Seager had a night. He also homered off lefty Tyler Holton in the seventh and finished with three hits, three RBIs and three runs scored.

But back to Flaherty. Evan Carter led off the second inning launching another 3-1 fastball into the right-field seats.

In the third, after a leadoff walk, Flaherty fell behind Joc Pederson 3-1 and paid for it with a two-run bomb to right-center.

The commonalities: All were left-handed hitters and Flaherty was pitching in hitter-friendly counts to three of the four.

Flaherty was out of the game after three innings. It was his shortest regular-season outing since last Sept. 14. And, it was the first time in his 161 big league starts that he’s allowed four homers in a game.

Before this start, Flaherty was holding lefties to a .190 average and one homer.

Playing from behind is never an easy task, but it’s especially difficult trying to do it against Rangers righty Jacob deGrom.

The Tigers had two big swings against him. Kerry Carpenter sent an elevated, 1-2 heater (97.9 mph) into the seats in right field leading off the bottom of the first.

Riley Greene sent a 3-2 slider over the wall in left-center leading off the fourth inning.

It was the ninth homer for both and the extent of the damage allowed by deGrom.

Carpenter ended up with three hits, including a triple in the eighth.

The first six outs that deGrom recorded, and seven of the first eight, were strikeouts. He finished with 10 in five innings.

One amusing sidebar to this one: This was the first time the brothers Jung competed against each other in a big league game. Both started at third base — Josh for Texas, Jace for Detroit — and both batted ninth in their respective batting orders.

The only direct competition between them, though, turned out to be a game of tic-tac-toe they scratched out of the dirt in front of third base.