Jackson Jobe's fastball struggled to get swings and misses
Jackson Jobe still had the velocity Friday night. What he did not have was a fastball that could get past Chicago hitters.
The White Sox scored five times in the fourth inning against Jobe, erasing an early Tigers lead on their way to a 9-5 victory at Comerica Park. Detroit fell to 60-62 and dropped 3½ games behind Chicago in the American League Central.
Jobe allowed six runs on nine hits over 3⅔ innings. He walked one, hit two batters and struck out four while throwing 45 of his 74 pitches for strikes.
The four-seam fastball averaged 97.8 mph and reached 100, so raw velocity was not the problem. According to Baseball Savant, Jobe generated only two whiffs on 19 swings against the pitch, an 11% whiff rate.
Chicago put nine of his four-seamers in play with an average exit velocity of 99.3 mph. Six were hit at least 95 mph.
Jobe's slider did not generate a whiff on six swings, either. His changeup was his best swing-and-miss offering, producing four whiffs on five swings, but he threw only 10 of them.
Chicago scored first after Jobe hit the first two batters of the game. Braden Montgomery eventually lined a 98.7 mph fastball into left field, scoring Sam Antonacci for a 1-0 lead.
Detroit answered in the second inning. Spencer Torkelson singled before Ben Malgeri drove a low changeup from José Urquidy into the seats in left-center. Malgeri's second home run of the season put the Tigers ahead, 2-1.
Kevin McGonigle started another two-out rally in the third with a single. Eduardo Valencia followed with a line-drive double into left, scoring McGonigle and extending the lead to 3-1. The game changed quickly in the fourth.
Chase Meidroth opened the inning with a single before Tristan Peters jumped on Jobe's first pitch, a 96.6 mph fastball, and hit a two-run homer to tie the game.
After Jobe recorded two outs, Munetaka Murakami received a 3-0 fastball at 96.9 mph and drove it 392 feet to right field. Miguel Vargas doubled, Andrew Benintendi walked and Montgomery cleared the bases with a two-run triple off a 96.3 mph fastball.
Three of Chicago's biggest swings came against fastballs in favorable hitting counts. The velocity remained present, but Jobe was unable to keep the White Sox from sitting on the pitch. His night ended with Detroit trailing 6-3.
Chicago added two more runs in the sixth when Vargas homered off Enmanuel De Jesus. Vargas later hit his third home run of the game against Ty Madden in the eighth.
Malgeri gave Detroit some life with his second homer of the night in the seventh. The 105.7 mph line drive gave him the first multi-homer game of his major-league career.
Max Clark followed with his second major-league triple and scored on a Gleyber Torres groundout, cutting the deficit to 8-5. Valencia also finished with two hits, while Detroit collected 10 overall.
The offense did enough to keep the game within reach for stretches, but the early lead disappeared when Jobe's fastball stopped producing outs. After five scoreless innings against San Francisco in his return from Tommy John surgery, his second start provided a much different test.
Jobe can still reach 100 mph. His next step is making that velocity more difficult for major-league hitters to time.
