Orioles, Tigers 4-4 Spring Training Tie Gives Early Look at Depth

Heston Kjerstad lifted a solo home run to right-center off Jack Flaherty to open the scoring, and a late Detroit push turned Sunday’s Grapefruit League game into a 4-4 tie at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium, giving Baltimore an early, live look at roster depth. The game played out on Feb. 22, 2026, and finished unresolved after nine innings of typical spring-training substitution patterns.

Baltimore built a 2-0 cushion in the first two innings when Samuel Basallo doubled, advanced to third on a fielding error by Tigers center fielder Parker Meadows, and later scored on Reed Trimble’s RBI single. The Orioles regained the lead in the fourth when José Barrero lined a run-scoring double to left, though Detroit limited the damage with a strong relay throw from Slater through Zach McKinstry to catcher Tomás Nido to cut down an additional run at the plate.

Published accounts do not itemize Detroit’s individual run producers in the available summaries, but the final score stood at 4-4. Roundtable Sports described the game as one where the “box score told the story of a typical ho-hum of a game, veterans getting early work, prospects rotating in quickly, and momentum swings nearly every inning, but Detroit showed some early fight and a late push to avoid a loss,” a characterization that captures the stop-and-start nature of the scoring and substitution patterns.

The pitching side featured what amounted to controlled experiments in bullpen use and matchups. Detroit turned to multiple relievers, with Bryan Sammons, Sean Guenther, and Tyler Mattison each working scoreless stretches during the contest. Baltimore’s game also resembled the early-spring blueprint: a steady parade of pitching changes and defensive substitutions that managers use to evaluate arms and give veterans innings.

Media coverage of the Feb. 22 game was limited in the moment. Roundtable Sports noted “there was no television broadcast and no easy way for fans to follow every pitch,” and CBS Sports placed the matchup in a highlights feed titled “Spring Training Highlights: Orioles at Tigers (2/22).” The CBS page included site copy reading “If not listed, please contact your TV provider” and legal language stating “© 2026 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved” along with a standard entertainment-disclaimer about the accuracy of information.

The outing served as what the original team report described as an early evaluation that “...offered early look at roster depth, bullpen usage and some players sta”, a fragment that underlines how incomplete early spring snapshots can be. For Orioles decision-makers in Baltimore, the Feb. 22 tie in Lakeland supplied concrete data points, Kjerstad’s homer, Basallo and Trimble’s second-inning sequence, Barrero’s double, the relay throw to Nido, and relief work by Detroit’s bullpen arms, that will feed conversations about who earns regular-season roles as spring training progresses.