Boyd says off night due to delivery, not fatigue

DETROIT — Matt Boyd isn’t physically tiring, he said. He pressed through 172 innings at five stops last year, finishing in the Tigers’ rotation and building up the stamina of a full schedule.

His first out Tuesday pushed him to 150 innings this season. That wasn’t the issue so much as the two-run lead the Twins had built by the time Boyd retired a batter. And it didn’t get better from there, draining the excitement of a playoff race out of the Comerica Park crowd in an 8-1 loss to the Twins.

Boyd had the kind of rough outing that befalls a young pitcher, a mess of mechanical issues and flat pitches. The way the offense continues to struggle, Detroit couldn’t afford the deficit.

“Not every start’s going to be a great start. It’s just the timing isn’t great, because we’re in September,” manager Brad Ausmus said. “But there’s going to be days where our starters don’t have great outings, even in the next three weeks. We hope that when that happens next time, we overcome it with offense.”

By the end, even if Boyd wasn’t tiring, he was tired of leaving pitches up to get hit.

“Just wasn’t working on all cylinders today,” he said. “What’s given me success since July just wasn’t there. I was out of sync.”

He looked more like the Matt Boyd of last September, …

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