As his teammates trickled up the tunnel after the Tigers' 6-3 loss to the Twins on Sunday at Comerica Park, third baseman Nick Maton sat by himself in the dugout. His throwing error in the 8th had allowed the Twins to tie the game, and his failure to come up with a grounder in the 10th had given them the lead -- and ultimately the series. After a few minutes of me-time, Maton came to his feet, grabbed his glove and made his way up the clubhouse stairs. He won't be coming back down them for a while: the Tigers have sent him to Triple-A Toledo.
"I should’ve made a couple plays and I didn’t, and it wears on you," Maton said. "I go out there every single day trying to put forth the best version of myself and I just haven’t been lately. And sometimes you just gotta take a moment."
That's what the Tigers hope Maton finds in Toledo, a chance to catch his breath. They traded for him in the offseason, after Maton had played a supporting role in helping the Phillies reach the World Series, with the idea that he could give them a quality glove at third base and a potent bat against right-handed pitching.
He's looked in over his head at the plate for much of the season and it's caught up to him in the field. His .163 average and .576 OPS are both last in the majors among qualified hitters. And he's last among third baseman in both outs above average (-7) and defensive runs saved (-6).
"Obviously I’ve struggled, a lot," Maton said. "But I know the player I can be, everyone knows the player I can be and maybe this will help me out. I’m not going to sulk around about it. I'm going to get to work and come back as the player I know I can be."
At the start of this week, Tigers president of baseball ops Scott Harris, the man who prioritized Maton in the trade that sent All-Star reliever Gregory Soto to the Phillies, professed faith in Maton's ability to figure things out in Detroit. He said the Tigers were confident in the work going on "behind the scenes," particularly the adjustments the 26-year-old was making in the cage with the team's hitting coaches.
"He’s still a young hitter," Harris said. "He still doesn’t have the body of work at this level to suggest that he’s going to be as consistent a performer as we think he’s going to be in the future. As long as the work looks good and he continues to show some of those adjustments at the plate, we’re going to give him some runway."
Six days later, Maton was on the highway to Toledo. Relievers Alex Lange and Jason Foley stopped by his locker to wish him well before he left; Maton said the message from manager A.J. Hinch was "just get right."
"I can bring a lot of things to the team and I just really haven’t this year yet," Maton said. "And yeah, maybe this will be a spark for me."
Maton did pick up two hits in Detroit's 3-2 win Saturday -- he also committed another eighth-inning error that nearly cost his team the game -- but he'd been in a brutal stretch before that: 3-for-his-last-34 and 7-for-67 this month. He insisted Sunday that his offensive adjustments are starting to pay off, but the results are impossible to ignore nearly halfway through the season. And too ugly for the Tigers to abide in the big leagues.
"This has started to build a little bit and this isn’t the environment (to fix it)," said Hinch. "We think he can make the adjustments. Most of the time we talk about that being offensive adjustments. In this sense, I think it’s a little bit of both. He needs a mental reset. ... I just had an emotional meeting with him. It’s tough, coming off a game like today, but it was necessary."
Hinch added that Maton "needs to commit to the full adjustments to get back to a more well-rounded baseball player, and he will. We have total confidence in him."
"This was unexpected to (happen) at this point, but those adjustments need to be made and the best environment for that is in Toledo where he can be a little bit out of the spotlight, a little bit more free to play every single day and get every single rep and not continue to drag the struggles of the previous day or the previous series or the previous week into the next at-bat or the next rep."
In Hinch's eyes, Maton was getting to the point where "success is a relief, and that’s not the right mentality." Asked how Maton received the news of his demotion, Hinch said, "This guy’s crushed when he’s swinging and missing or when he makes an error in the field."
"Respectful, yes. Understanding, yes. Happy or relieved? No. This guy wants to be an integral part of a good team and he’s had a tough go of it," Hinch said.
The Tigers are likely to call up Tyler Nevin to take Maton's spot, so temper expectations: Nevin hit .128 in 16 games with Detroit earlier this season. They originally acquired Maton to replace Jeimer Candelario, the third baseman they non-tendered in the offseason.
On the day they sent Maton to Toledo, Candelario hit his 10th homer of the season for the Nationals to raise his OPS to .799 -- eighth among MLB third baseman. He's also fourth among third baseman in outs above average and defensive runs saved, but we digress. Candelario hit .214 last season amid piles of empty at-bats and his time with the Tigers had run out.
For now, so has Maton's. They're hoping a reset in Toledo will lead to a fresh start in Detroit.
"I’m starting to swing the bat better, but it’s just the whole game I need to get right," said Maton. "I need to get to the player that I know I can be and I am, and this is probably the move that needed to happen."
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