Tigers manager says decision to bench star was message to the team

Javier Baez had a short night for the Detroit Tigers on Thursday after he was benched in the second inning for another series of baserunning mistakes.

Tigers manager A.J. Hinch explained the decision after the game, saying that it was a message to his team. 

"If you watch the last couple of series, we've made a number of mental mistakes, and the one thing we can control is our preparedness and our readiness," Hinch told the media after the Tigers' 3-1 win. "It's a message to our whole team that we've got to clean that up."

Baez has been at the center of those mistakes.

On Wednesday he failed to tag up on a fly ball for his first base-running error, then had two issues in the second inning of Thursday's game.

He walked out of the batter's box on a fly ball that he thought was a home run, only to watch it hit off the top of the wall. After that, he lost track of how many outs were in the inning and was doubled off second base when Akil Badoo flew out to center field on a routine play. 

Baez said his mind has been all over the place lately, and he lost track of outs because he was hitting lower in the batting order and thought he was the third Tigers batter of the inning. 

That is still not a great look for Baez because a Major League player should know when he is hitting in the order and always know how many outs there are in the inning. It is literally the bare minimum requirement. 

Baez is in the second year of a six-year, $140M contract he signed in free agency a year ago and it has not gone as planned so far.