A.J. Hinch rips Tigers after having to use three position players to pitch in loss

Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch has clearly lost patience with his team after an incredibly embarrassing loss Wednesday.

The Tigers lost to the Chicago White Sox 13-0 Wednesday, marking a series sweep and their fifth loss in six games. After falling behind 11-0 in the first six innings, the Tigers had to resort to using three position players to pitch the final three innings. Hinch said that alone should be enough to make the team feel embarrassed.

“We are accountable to the performance,” Hinch said, via Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. “This is unacceptable. We are better than this. We have not lived up to the standard that we expect. What the solution is, it’s something we talk about all the time. As long as the messaging is consistent with what we feel is right, that is where we’re at right now. We’re all accountable: the players, coaches, manager, front office, everybody. It’s been below par.

“The results are pretty obvious. If you’re not frustrated by today or even embarrassed that the game got out of hand to the point where we had to do what we had to do, this is baseball at its highest level, and we expect better.”

Hinch is admittedly out of options to turn things around. The pitching staff had largely held its own for much of the season, but has been let down by a historically bad offense averaging fewer than three runs per game. The Tigers have just 31 home runs as a team through 62 games, and no player has more than five.

After investing in the likes of Javier Baez, this was supposed to be the year the Tigers’ rebuild started to show progress. Instead, one of their key young arms is out for a long time, and they look further from contention than they did in 2021.