Tigers Blow 4-1 Lead in 7-5 Sweep Loss, Falling 5 1/2 Games Back

Q: What secret mechanical tweak turned a struggling pitcher into the exact savior Chicago's injury-riddled rotation desperately needed?

The key tweak was Anthony Kay subtly moving his back foot toward the first-base side of the pitching rubber, creating a sharper crossfire angle against right-handed hitters. That small mechanical adjustment helped him better tunnel his pitches to the glove side, which Kay said allowed everything to play off each other more effectively. White Sox pitching coach Zach Bove described it as one of the changes the club made after Kay’s rough first month, when the organization felt it had to intervene. The tweak was paired with a meaningful pitch-mix change. Kay leaned more on his sinker, which restored the ground-ball profile that had made him successful in Japan, and he expanded his mix with more sweepers and a harder slider while relying less heavily on a four-seam fastball that had been getting hit hard early in the season. The statistical turnaround was dramatic. Before May 1, Kay had a 6.12 ERA, a 12.3 percent strikeout rate and an 11.5 percent walk rate. After May 1, those numbers improved to a 3.27 ERA, a 21.2 percent strikeout rate and a 7.3 percent walk rate, along with a sharp jump in ground-ball rate and weaker contact allowed. For a White Sox rotation depleted by injuries to Hagen Smith, Tanner McDougal, Noah Schultz and Shane Smith, that combination of a small rubber-position change and a sinker-heavy redesign turned Kay from an early liability into a much-needed stabilizer.

3 articles · Updated · Detroit Free Press · Aug 16

Detroit dropped to 60-64 after a 7-5 loss completed a three-game White Sox sweep and left the Tigers 5 1/2 games out in the AL Central.
Tyler Holton unraveled the game after Drew Anderson exited with a 4-3 lead, allowing Colson Montgomery's tying single in the sixth and Munetaka Murakami's two-run homer in the seventh.
Anderson gave Detroit five innings and a season-high 74 pitches, while Brett Callahan tripled home two runs in his first MLB at-bat to help build an early 4-1 advantage.
Detroit managed only one run after the third inning, and Dillon Dingler's RBI double in the seventh was not enough after Hao-Yu Lee grounded out with the tying run on second.
The collapse flipped a series that began with Detroit in a playoff spot and within reach of first place; the Tigers now head to Pittsburgh with fading postseason odds.