Keider Montero yields three homers as Tigers drop series to Brewers

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Apr 16, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MILWAUKEE — Detroit Tigers’ right-hander Keider Montero continues to be a tease.

You see the high-revolution spin on both his slider and knuckle-curve and the crisscrossing action with his four-seam fastball and sinker, you see the ugly swings and strikeouts.

And then you look up at the scoreboard and he’s allowed four runs in three innings.

The early damage was enough to sink the suddenly punchless Tigers on Wednesday. The Milwaukee Brewers took the rubber match of the three-game set, beating the Tigers, 5-1, at American Family Field.

The loss snaps the Tigers’ run of four straight series wins.

Montero was officially called up from Triple-A Toledo before the game, giving the Tigers a temporary six-man rotation as they slog through a 23-game, 24-day patch of the schedule.

And he was mostly impressive, at least analytically. The metrics on his slider and knuckle-curve were elite.

The slider, which got seven whiffs on 12 swings, had an average spin rate of 2,740 rpm with 11 inches of horizontal break (and 3 inches of vertical break).

The six knuckle-curves he threw, which got three called strikes and one whiff, had a 2,913-rpm spin rate and surpassed 3,000, with 12 inches of vertical movement and 13 inches of horizontal.

Ridiculous movement profiles.

He had eight strikeouts in five innings, including punching out the heart of the Brewers’ order in the fifth (Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich and William Contreras).

But he also gave up three home runs and a triple and left the game with the Tigers in the four-run hole.

Yelich and Rhys Hoskins homered in a three-run third inning. In both, Montero left pitches in the heart of the strike zone, a changeup to Yelich and a four-seamer to Hoskins.

Hoskins was 6 for 10 with two homers in the series.

Even though lefty Brant Hurter was warm in the bullpen, manager AJ Hinch sent Montero back out for the sixth. He gave up a solo home run to lefty Sal Frelick, on another mislocated changeup, and departed one batter later.

It was a feast-or-famine outing, for sure.

As for the Tigers’ offense, it was mostly famine.

Lefty Jose Quintana, at age 36 and in his 14th season, flummoxed Tigers’ hitters for 5 2/3 innings. The only smudge was Spencer Torkelson’s sixth homer of the year, a 395-foot missile over the wall in right-center.

That homer broke an 18-innings scoring drought dating to the fifth inning Monday. In those 18 innings, the Tigers mustered five hits, six walks with 20 strikeouts and were 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position.

The scoring drought has coincided with a dry spell for Riley Greene. He went 0 for 4 Wednesday and has one hit in his last 31 at-bats with 19 strikeouts.

The Tigers return to Comerica Park Thursday for a four-game set with division rival Kansas City Royals.

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