Tigers relief pitcher Alex Lange was scolded by his manager and later demoted to Triple-A after throwing a tantrum on the mound during a recent outing.
After Lange gave up two runs in the seventh inning Wednesday against the Royals, he fired a baseball at about 90 mph, in a “reckless way,” toward the Tigers dugout, according to the Bally Sports Detroit broadcast.
Lange was attempting to get a new ball from the umpire and apparently got impatient waiting for it as his struggles mounted during the inning.
He then took the old ball and fired it off the net behind the Tigers dugout. The ball caromed off the net and back onto the field.
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch came out to the mound visibly upset, and proceeded to unload on his big right-hander for the poor behavior.
Bally’s broadcast missed the outburst while cutting to a replay, but play-by-play commentator Jason Benetti did his best to describe the events.
“Now after a leadoff walk in this inning, he’s given up two runs,” Benetti said. “He wanted a new baseball after Bobby’s [Witt Jr.] double, and the old baseball he threw about 90 miles per hour over the Tigers dugout. It hit the netting and rolled onto the field, and the bat boy had to go out and get it. I think AJ said, ‘That’s enough, you need to pull it together here, this game is not over.'”
The Tigers play-by-play announcer also mentioned that Lange had a similar outburst on Monday when his frustration boiled over from issuing back-to-back walks.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a pitcher throw a ball that hard when they want a new baseball,” Benetti said. “Usually they just lob it over there, and as soon as the ball ricocheted off the netting, I saw A.J. Hinch go to the steps and it didn’t look like a pitching change.”
Hinch’s mound visit lasted approximately eight seconds, and it was not a conversation. Lange wasn’t able to get in a word before Hinch returned to the dugout, looking as if he was still steaming.
The Tigers decided Thursday to send Lange down to Triple-A Toledo.
Hinch said the demotion wasn’t a direct result of the Lange’s outburst.
“I’ll answer the obvious question: After all the emotion yesterday, is this a reaction to something? The answer is no,” Hinch said Thursday, via the Detroit Free Press. “We’ve talked about Alex in recent weeks, or actually, for the entirety of his major league career, about strike-throwing and execution.”
Lange was the closer in 2023 and was expected to retain the role before being moved to lower-leverage roles after spring training with Jason Foley taking over as closer.
“His role has changed a little bit,” Hinch said. “That was due to his struggles with the strike zone, and as it continued yesterday and he started falling further and further behind in the role category in a bullpen, we decided the best place for him to go work on that is in Toledo.”
Lange was charged with four runs in his inning of work in Wednesday’s loss to the Royals.
It was the second time in five outings that Lange had allowed four earned runs, ballooning his ERA from 0.64 to 4.34.