TORONTO — What Vladimir Guerrero Jr. accomplished in the fourth inning seemed bound to happen, considering Detroit Tigers starter Tyler Alexander — a left-hander who is more crafty than overpowering — faced a lineup full of powerful righties.
“They’re potent and dangerous,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said before the game. “They like to swing.”
Guerrero, just 22 years old, jumped on a first-pitch 88 mph sinker from Alexander and drove the ball 425 feet to straightaway center field. His 36th home run put the Toronto Blue Jays ahead, 1-0, to support a brilliant performance from starter Robbie Ray.
The Tigers (59-65) never got a mammoth swing, but they sent the game to extra innings and capitalized on a pinch-hit single from Harold Castro with two outs. His base hit to left field plated Willi Castro — the free runner on second base in extras — to spark a three-run 10th inning and a 4-1 win over the Blue Jays in the series opener at the Rogers Centre.
“That was a big swing by Harold coming off the bench,” Hinch said. “We had targeted him to hit there depending on how the inning came about. He’s had some at-bats against (Trevor) Richards. Just a good job of not trying to do too much and giving our dugout a boost.”
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Castro has three hits in three at-bats against Richards.
“I was thinking about the changeup because he has pitched to me before with the changeup,” Castro said. “I was ready for the changeup with the first pitch. I hit it good.”
Jonathan Schoop and Jeimer Candelario added back-to-back RBI singles to push the lead to three runs. Left-handed reliever Gregory Soto pitched a perfect bottom of the 10th, his second inning of work, to help his team snap a four-game losing streak.
“Soto came off the field and was emphatic that he felt good and could go back out, and that’s when the game was tied,” Hinch said. “I love the fight in him. He’s got endurance. He’s got the ability to bounce back from situations that are less than ideal. It’s a short memory.”
With Soto pitching the bottom of the ninth, the Blue Jays put their first two runners on via walks. Threatening to score, pinch-hitter Breyvic Valera dropped down a questionable bunt. The lead runner was cut down at third base by an aggressive throw from Schoop, who shifted from second to first base at the beginning of the ninth.
“That’s just really Jonathan Schoop being athletic, challenging the play and not being afraid to make a mistake,” Hinch said. “Aggressive plays, we celebrate them. He was prepared for it. That’s as close to a batter that I’ve seen a first baseman set up.”
The next batter, Randal Grichuk, grounded into an inning-ending double play to send the game to extra innings.
Searching for his 500th home run, Miguel Cabrera finished 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. He is 4-for-25 (.160) with one double, four RBIs, three walks and eight strikeouts in seven games since hitting No. 499 on Aug. 11 in Baltimore.
But Cabrera wasn’t the only player struggling.
The Tigers’ offense didn’t offer much help to Alexander’s valiant effort. Making his seventh start since officially joining the starting rotation, Alexander — a former long reliever — tossed seven innings of one-run ball. He conceded just four hits and two walks, striking out six batters.
Of his 88 pitches, 56 went for strikes.
“Most teams I face when I pitch, they’re going to stack as many righties as they can,” Alexander said. “I don’t hate when they do that because I like throwing cutters in, and I threw a lot of two-seams in to the righties, too. Left-on-left is always preferred, but when I can face a lot of righties, I feel like I can use a lot more of my arsenal.”
The top four batters in Toronto’s lineup — Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien, Guerrero and Teoscar Hernandez — combined for one hit and four strikeouts across 12 at-bats when facing Alexander. He capitalized on 13 swings and misses, 10 produced by his changeup.
Alexander sent down 11 batters in a row to finish his outing.
“I can’t say enough good things about Tyler,” Hinch said. “He did everything we could have asked and more against that lineup. That’s as deep as I’ve taken him into the game. We needed that tonight. Our bullpen has been beat up and is exhausted. That kind of performance from a volume standpoint, cool.
“But that type of performance and getting the quality with it, man, it’s certainly player-of-the-game-type stuff.”
Ex-Tiger deals
Ray pitched for Detroit in 2014 and entered Friday competing with some of the best arms for the American League Cy Young. He has 2.79 ERA over 24 starts and gave the Blue Jays eight innings of one-run ball, allowing five hits and one walk with 11 strikeouts.
The left-hander retired the first five batters he faced before Willi Castro lined a single to right in the second inning. He worked around singles from Grayson Greiner and Schoop in the third, earning strikeouts for all three outs.
“We had such a hard time advancing runners against Robbie Ray,” Hinch said. “Robbie’s been punching out guys all year.”
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Following Schoop’s third-inning single, Ray sent down seven in a row — four by strikeout — to get him to the sixth inning. To open the sixth, Robbie Grossman bounced a fastball to third baseman Santiago Espinal, who bobbled the ball, rushed his throw and pulled his first baseman off the bag.
Grossman reached safely with a single, then he stole second base.
Even with some pressure, Ray didn’t fold. He escaped the inning with strikeouts of Schoop and Candelario before Cabrera grounded out in his third at-bat of the night. (He popped out to first base in the second and struck out in the fourth.)
Hinch finds a way
The Tigers didn’t get to Ray again until the eighth inning.
That’s when Hinch applied pressure.
Zack Short lined a fastball into left field for a single. Grayson Greiner, hitting .239 in minimal opportunities this season, advanced him to second base with a sacrifice bunt. When Short stole third base — just his second steal in 46 games — the Tigers were in business with one out.
Short refused to test Hernandez’s arm when Grossman flew out to right field. He made a wise decision because he would have been out. But the rookie didn’t hesitate to take off on Ray’s wild pitch, scampering home to tie the game, 1-1, in the eighth.
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Evan Petzold is a sports reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.