DETROIT — Keider Montero hadn’t heard the term, didn’t know the definition, wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. A Maddux. That’s the word these days when a pitcher throws a shutout in fewer than 100 pitches.
Hall of Famer Greg Maddux did it 13 times. No one else in the pitch-tracking era has done it more than seven times. Now Montero has done it once, and it’s something he may never forget.
“Now I know,” the Detroit Tigers rookie right-hander said Tuesday night through a subtle smile.
After Montero struck out Jordan Beck of the Colorado Rockies on his 96th pitch of the evening, he flexed his arms and pumped his fists and roared. The culmination of this outing in an 11-0 victory was an emotional moment for an otherwise calm and collected pitcher who just became the latest symbol of the Tigers’ charmed second half.
“I was over the clouds,” Montero said. “I’m very proud and happy for all the work we performed today.”
After picking up the complete game shutout, Keider Montero’s performance makes him the easy choice to be named tonight’s @FamilyCooling Player of the Game!#RepDetroit pic.twitter.com/vZANOK083w
— Bally Sports Detroit (@BallySportsDET) September 11, 2024
The team’s best outing this season no longer belongs to Tarik Skubal, the team’s ace and the odds-on favorite to win the American League Cy Young Award. Instead, that claim now belongs to the 24-year-old from Venezuela who made his MLB debut earlier this season, originally called up as the 27th man for a doubleheader and overshadowed that day by a dazzling outing from fellow rookie Paul Skenes.
Mostly out of necessity — as Kenta Maeda faltered and Casey Mize got injured — Montero found himself as a fixture in the Tigers’ rotation by July. The rookie with the mid-90s fastball, a good slider and a potent changeup showed flashes of what he could do but also battled the ups and downs of acclimating to the major leagues. On July 8, he threw 6 1/3 scoreless against the Cleveland Guardians. Over his three ensuing starts, he got throttled for 15 earned runs.
“He’s super easy to coach, and it’s just a matter of him growing his confidence to be able to take it out on the field and do it,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s trying his damndest to be perfect.”
Tuesday, Montero was coming off an outing in which he gave up five earned runs over 4 1/3 innings against the San Diego Padres. Since coming to the big leagues, Montero has spent hours buried in his iPad, studying mechanics and making tweaks. He has worked relentlessly, jogging up and down stadium steps in the midday heat. He added a sinker and kept searching for the right pitch mix on the right day.
The months of work are part of why Montero was intent on finishing Tuesday’s outing, taking stock of his pitch count in the dugout during the ninth and reminding himself to keep doing what had been working. The work is also why so much emotion poured out of Montero on Tuesday after all was said and done.
For nine innings, he shut down an aggressive Rockies order that just kept swinging as if its hitters had other places to be. Montero breezed through the fourth, fifth and sixth innings in only 20 pitches. He gave up three hits and walked no batters on the night. He induced three double plays, meaning he faced the minimum 27 batters, becoming the first Tigers pitcher to do so since Justin Verlander twirled a no-hitter against the Blue Jays in 2011.
He did all that despite the fact catcher Dillon Dingler was scratched with illness only a couple of hours before game time. Montero got with Jake Rogers and implemented the game plan on the fly.
From the outfield, Parker Meadows has watched Montero throughout his road to the majors. This, Meadows said, was the best he has ever seen Montero pitch.
“I didn’t run around much, which usually is a good sign,” Meadows joked.
By game’s end Montero tipped a hat toward the crowd, smiled through the embraces of his teammates and shared a tight hug with Carlos Guillén, the team’s manager of Spanish communications.
Montero’s time in the major leagues has not been a linear progression. His 4.88 ERA and a 5-6 record reflect the peaks and the valleys. Montero, though, has been an integral part of a staff that has been baseball’s best over the past two months. For all of August, he and Skubal were the only traditional starters in the rotation. He ate innings and remained competitive even when his pitch counts grew bloated or his stuff lacked its sizzle. Now you look up and the Tigers have won five of Montero’s past seven outings. Gabe Ribas, the Tigers’ director of pitching who has been instrumental in Montero’s development, happened to be in attendance for this latest one in which all the elements of his game came together.
“It’s one of the reasons we have stuck with him, because of the weapons, because of the versatility in his arsenal, the ability to hang in there, the competitiveness,” Hinch said. “The upshoot fastball is good, the multiple breaking balls is good, the changeup is an emerging pitch. That’s a lot of ingredients. He needs time, he needs reps, he needs consistent routines, all things that we’ve been chiseling away with since he was in A-ball.”
Hinch and his players spent pregame and postgame mostly deflecting questions about the wild-card race and the standings. But it is players like Montero who have made those questions and conversations a reality.
As the Tigers look to complete the most unlikely of runs, they keep finding heroes in the most unlikely of places.
“This is an organizational win from the perspective of getting to enjoy this together at our park with a homegrown guy who has been getting incrementally better every step along the way,” Hinch said. “It’s just an incredible moment.”
(Photo of Keider Montero: Lon Horwedel / USA Today)
