DETROIT -- There's not a lot for Tigers fans to cheer about these days and Victor Martinez probably can't even watch.
Wednesday night's 6-1 loss to the Oakland A's extended the Tigers' losing streak to six games and dropped them to four games back in the Central Division at 28-26.
The Tigers are 5-10 since Martinez went on the disabled list, 4-8 against right-handed starters.
Martinez is home in Orlando rehabilitating his surgically repaired left knee.
You add in the fact that A's starter Sonny Gray came in with a 1.82 ERA, so it seemed likely with the way the Tigers' offense has gone lately that runs would be hard to come by.
Gray did what he's been doing, limiting the Tigers to just two hits over eight innings, dropping his ERA to 1.65.
"He's a good pitcher," said J.D. Martinez, who was 0-for-4. "He's got a good arm, he throws hard, got good movement and he locates well."
Yoenis Cespedes broke up Gray's no-hitter with a single in the fourth.
You know things are going badly when the opposing starter adds a pitch to his arsenal right before the game starts.
"It was a lot of hard stuff, probably a handful of curveballs but mostly fastballs," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "He actually came up with a cutter today. Slider turned into a cutter today, he didn't feel very good about his slider in the bullpen. He picked up another pitch on the fly."
Meanwhile, Tigers starter Anibal Sanchez has a nice array of pitches himself, but his weren't as effective as Gray's.
Sanchez tied a season high with four walks, two of which led to runs as Billy Burns hit a bases-clearing triple in the second.
Josh Reddick hit a solo home run in the third.
"I'm going to give credit to the other pitcher," Sanchez said. "Sonny, he throw a really good ballgame. He keep our team hit soft ground balls in the infield, miss a lot of pitch. I think he threw a really good ballgame, he don't give you any kind of chance for us to bring the game back. Personally, just missed a couple pitch. One for Burns and another one for Reddick, just for put runs quickly."
Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said the team's swoon of 15 losses in their last 24 games, which has dropped them to third in the division behind Kansas City and Minnesota, is bad but not embarrassing.
"The only thing that would be embarrassing would be if the effort wasn't there," Ausmus said. "I don't see that. The effort is there. These guys are here early, working their tails off, the guys that are scuffling. They feel awful, because they feel like they're not helping their teammates."
Sanchez agreed that it's not a lack of effort that's the problem.
"I know the team, they play so hard, they're working so hard and you can see everybody tries to bring some guys in," Sanchez said. "All of them want to do something special for win for the team."
Just as the Tigers knew their early offensive onslaught wouldn't last, they still believe this skid won't last either.
"I feel like it's bound to change and before you know it we're going to start breaking bats and getting hits everywhere and you're going to be like, what's going on, everything's going right," Martinez said.
"It just seems like it's one of those things, we've just got to stay positive and keep grinding."
