Louis Severino continues a late rush to lead the Yankees’ victory over the Tigers

MLB

by Greg Joyce

August 28, 2023 | 9:31 p.m

DETROIT – A concert was held Monday night at Comerica Park.

Unfortunately for the Yankees, the hitters were largely responsible.

Fortunately for the Yankees, Louis Severino also participated and continued his late season turnaround.

Severino hit a season-high eight hits, 15 swings and one misses across seven shutout innings to lead the Yankees to a 4-1 victory over the Tigers.

It was the second consecutive scoreless game for Severino, who also threw 6 ⅔ scoreless innings against the Nationals last week.

Before back-to-back encouraging starts, the suspended free agent posted a 7.98 ERA over his first 15 starts of the season.

On Monday, Severino dished out five batters while not walking a batter for only the fourth time this season.

He completed seven innings for the first time since his last start of the 2022 regular season.

While neither the Tigers (59-72) nor the Citizens will be confused for the crimes of the juggernaut, Severino has struggled to find any kind of success against crimes of any kind during his brutal stretch.

His final momentum is sure to be tested this weekend against the Astros.

For now, though, the Yankees (63-68) have been content with being a popular club presence.

In a battle between two of the least productive strikeouts in the major leagues, the Yankees struck out 16 times to the Tigers’ 10.

The Tigers’ rookie right-hander, Reese Olson, was responsible for striking out 10 Yankees over 4 innings.

The first eight hits he scored all came by knockouts.

The Yankees finally broke the scoreless tie in the fifth inning.

He walked Aaron Judge and then scored all the way from first on a double by Glieber Torres to the gap on Olson’s 100th and final throw of the night.

Judge later had a more comfortable trot around the bases in the seventh inning, when he hit his 29th home run of the year to go sliding 0-for-17 (with 10 hits) since he last went deep on Thursday.

Then Glaber Torres pulled the score off, hitting a 430-foot ball off reliever Bo Briskey for a 3-0 lead.

In the eighth inning, Oswaldo Cabrera drove in an insurance run, scoring on a single to center field that was scored by Isaiah Keener-Valeva.

The closest the Tigers came to scoring on Severino was when Zach McKinstry tripled with one out in the sixth inning on a fly ball that Kenner Valeva pulled into the gap (after making a solid catch into the gap the previous inning).

But as he entered the field, Severino had Riley Green fire a single shot to stop Anthony Volpe, whose Kyle Higashioka shot into the net beat McKinstry.

On a single out, Severino hit Spencer Turkelson on a 99-mile-per-hour fastball to escape the threat.

Clay Holmes lost the shutout in the ninth when he gave up a leadoff home run to Akil Badu, but he recovered to get the win.