Everything is on the line for the Detroit Tigers as they play their final eight games of the 2024 regular season. It felt like it for all ten innings of Saturday’s matchup with the Orioles as they blew a lead, recaptured the lead, blew it again to force extra innings, and ultimately won a classic nail-biter in the 10th. Along the way we saw clutch hitting and pitching, and plenty of great defense and baserunning as the Tigers continue to squeeze everything out of their talent while up against the most pressure any of them have ever faced in their baseball careers.
After two months of improvisation, the Tigers rotation is finally getting healthy. They had Reese Olson back for his second appearance since coming off the injured list in this one. He isn’t stretched out fully yet, and the Tigers aren’t ready to push him too far, but he gives them another lethal, once through the order, guy at a minimum. The Orioles had lefty Cade Povich toeing the bump and while he’s good against lefties, the Tigers clearly had the pitching advantage coming into this one.
Both teams went in order in the first as the starting pitchers worked into their outings. Parker Meadows made a fine diving catch on a Cedric Mullins drive to the warning track for the standout defensive highlight early on. The Tigers continue to play great defense, grind out long at-bat, and run the bases aggressively. This is now what we’ll call “Tigers baseball” and it feels good.
In the second inning, the Tigers struck first.
Riley Greene led off with a walk, and with two outs, Trey Sweeney ripped a double to center field to move Greene to third as Cedric Mullins got the ball back in quickly. Dillon Dingler reached out for a Povich changeup away and he smoked it to center field for a two-run triple. 2-0 Tigers. Mullins then returned serve to his opposite number as Parker Meadows drilled a sinking drive to center field and Mullins made a really nice diving catch of his own.
Olson looked pretty good as he starts to settle back into his routine, but he ran into trouble in the bottom half of the second. Colton Cowser singled to lead off, but was forced at second on an Adley Rutschman ground ball. Olson dug a hole for himself by walking Ryan O’Hearn and hitting Heston Kjerstad. An Emmanuel Rivera sac fly scored Rutschman, but Olson got Jackson Holliday to fly out to hang onto the 2-1 lead.
The Tigers right-hander struck out the side in the third, looking more like his excellent pre-surgery form with both the slider and changeup drawing whiffs.
Justyn-Henry Malloy drew a leadoff walk in the fourth, but the Tigers hit three straight balls to Cowser in left for outs.
Brant Hurter took over in the fourth, as Olson still isn’t really built up to his usual workload and was rushed back to a degree. He finally ran into a little trouble, giving up a pair of one-out singles to Rutschman and O’Hearn. Kjerstad lined a single to the left, but Riley Greene fired a strike to home plate and cut down Rutschman to preserve the 2-1 lead. Hurter got Rivera to end the inning.
Riley Greene, folks. Doing it all.
The Tigers went in order in the fifth, and Hurter pitched around a single to send this to the sixth still with a slim lead.
Right-hander Matt Bowman took over from Povich after his five innings of work. The Tigers got one-out singles from Greene and Kerry Carpenter, who hit for Malloy, in the top of the sixth, but Spencer Torkelson grounded into a double play. Tough game all around from the Tigers right-handed hitters who were all in the lineup to get to Povich. Only Dingler did damage, but the game was a long way from over.
Hurter walked Rutschman and allowed a two-out single to Kjerstad in the bottom of the sixth. Will Vest took over, but Rivera spanked a single back through the box into center field to tie the ballgame 2-2.
Lefty Keegan Akin took over in the seventh. Sweeney and Dingler greeted him with singles and the Tigers were poised to re-capture the lead, but they went in order from there. The fear gauge started to grind higher after that wasted opportunity. Meanwhile the Twins and Red Sox were rained out at Fenway and will play a doubleheader tomorrow. So, all eyes were on this game in the AL Wild Card race.
Sean Guenther took over in bottom of the seventh, and holy cow has he been good out of nowhere. The Tigers more or less rebuilt him after some injuries, and the southpaw’s new splitter has been lethal. He went through Gunnar Henderson, Mullins, and Anthony Santander in order to maintain the tie and send us to the eighth.
Lefty Cionel Perez took over for Baltimore in the eighth, and the Tigers continued to grind out long at-bats and put the ball in play. Matt Vierling knifed a single through the right side to lead off the inning, and Riley Greene followed with a soft grounder to third and beat out the throw to put two on for Kerry Carpenter.
Except, that A.J. Hinch isn’t going to back down from his stratagems at this point, and so he pinch hit Jake Rogers for his second best hitter in Carpenter. No doubt people were feeling some kind of way about that, and then it worked out, as Rogers slapped a hard grounder back up the middle and right over the outstretched glove of Holliday into center field to score Vierling.
Riley Greene was almost thrown out going first to third, but on top of his bat and his defense, Riley pulled a pretty awesome swim move and just avoided the throw to Rivera from Mullins to get into third. The Orioles challenged but Riley was safe.
Manager Brandon Hyde went all in, calling on Seranthony Dominguez to face Torkelson. Hinch countered with Colt Keith, and Keith lifted a fly ball to left center field for a sacrifice fly to score Greene. 4-2 Tigers.
Trey Sweeney grounded out, moving Rogers to third, and Dillon Dingler continued his best game in the major leagues by battling through an 11 pitch at-bat to draw a walk. Gregory Soto came on to try and stop the bleeding against Parker Meadows, and got him to fly out to left to finally end a long inning.
Defensively, Andy Ibáñez moved to first base as Keith took over at second base. Guenther was still on the mound and he immediately dispatched Cowser with a wild swing at a slider that saw him disarmed in the process. He lost control of his bat, and it skittered down the first base line as Cowser stalked back to the dugout in frustration. Guenther got Rutschman to ground out, and Hyde turned to Eloy Jimenez to hit for Ryan O’Hearn with two outs. Jimenez smoked a rocket right to Vierling at third. He more or less blocked it with his body, picked it up, and gunned down the slow moving Jimenez to send this to the ninth.
Unfortunately, the Tigers couldn’t extend their lead and so it was Jason Foley time. The odds looked good as the Orioles 7-8-9 hitters were coming up. However, it’s still a pretty deep roster for the Orioles, and there are no automatic outs. Zach McKinstry came in to play second base for Keith.
Kjerstad battled through a long at-bat and singled to right field. Then Rivera followed suit, pulling one through the ride side as well to put runners on first and second with no out. Not good. Holliday stepped to the dish, and while he’s a highly talented young player, he’s struggled in his rookie campaign. Foley had to get him before the top of the order came up again. Hinch had the bullpen warming as Foley continued to struggle to locate, and Foley eventually walked Holliday.
The pucker factor was now off the charts. We should note that the Orioles were trying to clinch a playoff spot with a victory and a Mariners loss. So they had plenty to play for as well.
Foley got a break with a slider away that got called strike one, but Gunnar Henderson smoked the next pitch right back into right center field to tie the game and took second on the play. The only thing that kept Holliday from scoring was Meadows aggressively closing on the ball and cutting it off in the gap. Had it gotten by him to the wall this was over.
Runners on second and third, no outs. Yeah, this was a disaster brewing. Hinch came out to get Foley and Beau Brieske came in with Mullins, Santander, and Cowser still to get and the scored knotted at 4-4. That was just the second time Foley has allowed an earned run since July, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Brieske got ahead of Mullins 1-2, and Mullins chopped a changeup to McKinstry at second base. He held the runners, who weren’t going on contact, and recorded the first out with a toss to first. One down.
Now it was Santander. Brieske was careful with the dangerous power hitter and fell behind 2-0. Santander lifted a blooper behind third base and it looked like it was going to drop as Greene and Sweeney ran full out at each other. Greene saw Sweeney coming on like a freight train and hit the grass. They collided as Sweeney made the catch and somersaulted into a seated position facing home plate and he got the ball right back in to hold Holliday at third. An absolutely miraculous play.
Look at this. Look how far Sweeney ran to make this play. We might remember that play for the rest of Detroit Tigers history if the improbable continues to happen for a few more weeks. Holliday might not have scored if the ball had dropped, as he had to hold to be sure, but they had to have that out. Cowser flew out to center field, and Beau Brieske had saved the Tigers bacon. Wow.
Vierling started the inning on second. Right-hander Yennier Cano was on the mound for Baltimore. Riley Greene immediately pulled an RBI single to right field for his third hit of the game 5-4 Tigers. Jace Jung pinch-hit for Rogers in the DH spot, and he smoked a double up the right center field gap to get Greene to third base with no outs. Huge knock for the struggling rookie. Playoff baseball. The mood swings are amazing.
Zach McKinstry came through next, ripping a fly ball to right field for a sacrifice fly to score Greene. 6-4 Tigers. Jung had to hold at second base as Trey Sweeney stepped to the dish. Cano managed to punch out Sweeney and Dingler, and so it was on to the bottom of the 10th with a two-run lead.
After a quick break to pop some antacids, it was time to decide this thing.
Brieske got Rutschman on a ground out, moving Cowser from second to third to start the inning. Livan Soto stepped to the dish and Brieske missed with his first three pitches. He fired one strike, but then missed low to walk him.
Heston Kjerstad is a talented young hitter and he stepped to the dish having had a very good day at the plate with three hits. Brieske got him to swing over a changeup for strike one, then missed with back-to-back pitches to fall behind 2-1. The Tigers were playing the left-handed hitter to go the opposite way. Brieske got a whiff but missed again with the fastball to force a 3-2 count. Tyler Holton was up and warming, but Brieske broke off another great changeup for a swinging strike three, and the Orioles were down to their final out. Daniel Johnson grounded out to second, and the Tigers had the victory.
With the Twins rained out, the Tigers are back to a half game back. Meanwhile the Giants crushed the Royals 9-0, bringing even more possibilities into play in the wild card chase. The Tigers are a game back of Kansas City as well, though they too own the tiebreaker over Detroit despite last week’s sweep.
What a gutsy victory. Good grief. Cardiac Cats indeed. A week ago they were playing with house money. Now, they aren’t sneaking up on anyone and a very young team is really feeling the pressure and the possibilities before them, and they’re still coming through in the clutch with a ton of guys contributing. Really good stuff.
This dip you’ll see late in the win expectancy graph was our hearts temporarily stopping. Excuse me while I go pass out now.