Ben Joyce earns first save against Rangers

Grichuk mashed lefty starter Andrew Abbott as he was expected to do, but was removed for Andrew Benintendi when Abbott left the game. The 34-year-old platoon player is hitting .293/.339/.578 against lefties this year.

He allowed a leadoff walk and Colson Montgomery was about five feet short of a game-tying homer before Edgar Quero hit an RBI single. Sam Antonacci hit a sharp line drive right up the middle that Elly De La Cruz was able to spear down to finish off the game. Garcia appearing here was a bit of an eyecatcher with Emilio Pagán having not pitched yesterday, so we’ll keep an eye out for quotes about this but Pagán has already been on the injured list for a lot of this season, has pitched just once in eight days, and may be being used judiciously even if he is healthy.

He was pulled two outs shy of qualifying for a win with 93 pitches. Rough. That makes three straight starts where Abbott has allowed at least three earned runs, and he’s walked 10 batters over those starts while striking out just eight. He’ll be a tenuous 12-team starter against the Cardinals next week.

It looks to be nothing more than a routine day of rest for the 27-year-old center fielder. Andrew Pinckney will start in his place and will bat ninth against Cubs’ right-hander Kevin Gausman on Thursday afternoon in Washington.

Javier Sanoja’s ERA will never recover. Gonzalez needed a game like this to remain in the conversation to be the team’s shortstop against right-handers before Konnor Griffin makes it back. He’s hitting just .225/.256/.400 in his last 15 games even after this, and hasn’t shown enough to make him a must-roster even in deeper leagues.

One of them was against position player pitcher Javier Sanoja, but it all looks the same in the box score. The other was off LHP reliever John King — both of them were pulled into left field. The former Yankees farmhand acquired in the David Bednar trade was hitting .200/.355/.360 before this effort and is at .233/.361/.567 with it.

It was the only run they’d score and one of just three hits they found against Ashcraft, it was a 402-foot shot to right-center. Caissie is hitting .175/.244/.400 in his last 15 games with 17 strikeouts in 40 at-bats, but he’s getting more runway of late with Liam Hicks traded and Kyle Stowers on the injured list.

He was scoreless through four, but allowed a triple and homer in the top of the fifth, then left two inherited runners in the sixth that both came around to score courtesy of Cade Gibson giving up a walk, hit by pitch and two-run single in short succession. Phillips has a 3.94 ERA and 1.31 WHIP in his last seven starts and continues to be about a 50/50 bet to actually pitch deep enough into the game to qualify for a win. He’s slated to face the Phillies next week.

It was a shutout until the ninth, when Owen Caissie hit one out to cut the lead to 13-1. Ashcraft had allowed 21 runs in his last five starts entering today, along with seven homers, so this qualifies as a bit of a course correction. Ashcraft generated a 30 percent whiff rate on 33 swings, with both the curveball and slider drawing misses while he touched 99.2 mph on the gun with his fastball. Ashcraft draws the Tigers in his next start, hopefully he can keep this form going.

Valencia is hitting .381/.381/.952 versus left-handers and .391/.440/.739 against right-handers this year. We dunno what he has to do to get more work — we understand the Tigers can’t exactly bench Dillon Dingler, but there is a DH spot. This was Valencia’s first action since August 9 and he’s appeared in just seven games this month despite the hot bat.