Detroit — The Saturday attendance at Comerica Park was 23,581 — thousands more of which, certainly, came to see Shohei Ohtani than, say, Victor Reyes, Kody Clemens or Tyler Alexander.
But Reyes, with a two-out, go-ahead single and a fine diving catch, and Clemens, with a double and single coming off the bench for an injured Jonathan Schoop, helped lead the Tigers to a 4-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels to even the three-game series at a one-run win apiece.
Alexander (3-7) gave up three runs on six hits through the first three innings and appeared headed for a short day, until he was nearly flawless over the next three innings. From the third through the sixth, he allowed a single base runner, and no runs, retiring nine in a row at one point.
The Tigers’ bullpen did the rest, with Alex Lange, Joe Jimenez and Gregory Soto combining for three hitless innings to close out the game.
“I like the way I finished after the way I started,” Alexander said. “I couldn’t get the ball in.
“Maybe, mentally, something changed.”
The game was tied at 3 through three innings, after Jeimer Candelario’s sacrifice fly scoring Eric Haase, who led off the third with a double.
Then, in the fifth, Candelario drew a one-out walk, and Clemens, in his second at-bat since coming in for Schoop after he left with a right ankle injury, singled off Angels left-handed start Reid Detmers. Tucker Barnhart followed with a strikeout for the second out, before Reyes drilled a two-out RBI single to center.
It was the second hit of the game for Reyes, who also singled in the second — when the Tigers had five hits, including two doubles, and a walk but only scored two runs.
But Schoop, whose double drove in Harold Castro for the Tigers’ first run, went home on Barnhart’s single to right. He was thrown out by right fielder Taylor Ward. The throw beat Schoop by a wide margin, but he attempted to tap dance around catcher Max Stassi, who applied the tag. Schoop laid on the ground for a few moments, clutching his right ankle, limped off the field and immediately went down the dugout tunnel with Tigers’ head athletic trainer Doug Teter. That was the end of Schoop’s day; he is day-to-day.
“We haven’t scored a ton,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said of third base coach Ramon Santiago’s decision to send Schoop, in the wet conditions. “I think he was trying to be ultra aggressive.”
The Tigers threatened to only score once on the five hits in the inning, but Willi Castro got a two-out, bases-loaded walk, taking a 3-2 pitch down and in. The Tigers tied it the next inning and threatened to take the lead after Barnhart hit a weak two-out grounder to short, where Andrew Velazquez, perhaps forgetting how many outs there were, threw to third, where Luis Rengifo wasn’t ready and was off the bag.
The Angels avoided disaster when Mike Trout made a leaping grab on Reyes’ liner to center.
Clemens was one of three Tigers who had two hits, lining a double down the line in right in his first at-bat, off Detmers (4-4). Riley Greene also had two hits for the Tigers, who had 11 as a team.
Alexander allowed the three runs on seven hits in six innings, striking out two.
Of the first 16 hitters, seven reached, including the Angels’ No. 9 hitter Velazquez, who homered with two out and nobody on in the second inning. Alexander decided to attack Velazquez with fastballs, because the two-out walk, with Ohtani and Trout coming up, wasn’t an option.
“I didn’t think he could hit a homer,” said Alexander, a master of deadpan, “and he did.”
Said Barnhart, of Alexander: “It just took a second to kind of find a groove.”
Ohtani followed the homer with a single — his second hit; he opened the game with a double, leading to the first run — but Alexander got Trout to ground out to end the second. Ohtani struck out in his last two at-bats Saturday; Trout, who recently missed 30 games with injury, finished 0-for-4. They’re 3-for-15 in the series.
The Angels had one hits in their last six innings.
Lange got two strikeouts — Ohtani and Trout — in his perfect seventh inning, after Reyes made a fine diving catch on Velazquez, leading off. Then Jimenez got two strikeouts in his perfect eighth inning. Soto went unscathed in the ninth for his 23rd save of the season. Soto was helped out by first baseman Harold Castro, who made a fantastic over-the-shoulder catch for the first out, and Soto also worked around a one-out walk.
Soto got Stassi to hit into a double play to end the game, 6-4-3.
“The bullpen has been terrific,” Hinch said. “We feel good about the guys we put in.
“That’s a comfortable feeling for me.”
The Tigers and Angels, a gloomy weather forecast pending, will try to wrap up the series at 1:40 p.m. Sunday, with an intriguing pitching matchup — Ohtani, who limped off the field after fouling a ball off his foot Saturday, against Eduardo Rodriguez, who is making his first start since May after leaving the Tigers for several months for a personal family matter.
We’re running a new-subscriber special. Support local journalism, and subscribe here.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @tonypaul1984