Well, that’s baseball for you. The matchup everyone thought suited the Tigers best, with Eduardo Rodriguez on the mound, turned into a rout with an assist from some uncharacteristically bad defense as the Pirates split the series on Wednesday afternoon.
Rodriguez got off to a solid start in this one, picking up where he left off on this recent six start run of excellence. He struck out Ke’Bryan Hayes to start the game, then stranded an Andrew McCutcheon single by popping up Carlos Santana to end the inning.
A.J. Hinch stacked the lineup with right-handers against veteran southpaw Rich Hill in this one.