A mixture of good and bad performances peppered Monday’s intrasquad matchup as the Detroit Tigers got their final tuneup before heading to Cincinnati.
Ivan Nova started his outing with style, punching out JaCoby Jones with a crisp two-seam fastball on the outside black and got back to his old tricks by getting Victor Reyes to ground out on a two-ball count. Aside from an arrant curveball that whizzed by Cameron Maybin above eye-level, he seemed to get into the groove early on, but that devolved very quickly. He showed warning signs early, giving up a lot of solid contact, which would be his undoing in this game.