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    • Detroit Tigers fall to play winner-take-all ALDS Game 5 in Cleveland
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    Detroit Tigers fall to play winner-take-all ALDS Game 5 in Cleveland

    Vaseline Posted on

    Detroit — They were nine zeros away from another party Thursday night and another record crowd at Comerica Park (44,923) was ready to party.

    The only problem: the American League Central Division champions weren’t ready to die.

    “You knew they weren’t just going to fold,” Tigers first baseman Spencer Tokelson said after the Cleveland Guardians avoided elimination with a 5-4 comeback win over the Tigers in Game 4. “This would have been their last game .They won’t just give up. They will keep waving and supporting, they came out on top in the end.

    “Losing sucks, whether it’s Game 50 or October. We hate losing.”

    This American League Division Series will be decided on Saturday (8:08 PM) at Progressive Field. The likely starters: Tarik Skubal for the Tigers; Matthew Boyd for Cleveland. This will be the 18th meeting between these two teams this year.

    No more tricks, no more surprises. Just a street fight between two battered and familiar enemies.

    “They give us our best and we give them our best and best man wins,” Torkelson said. “No one surprises anyone. Just go out there and beat them.”

    ▶ BOX SCORE: Guards 5, Tigers 4

    Both managers came to the podium with a mixture of exhaustion and exuberance, with the adrenaline still flowing.

    “What an incredible game,” said Tigers’ AJ Hinch. “Lots of big performances on both sides, and a hard-fought game. Expect nothing less from these two teams playing for the chance to advance. It’s just how the games have gone all season against these guys.”

    “They put up a really good fight, had some big swings, some big throws. We did the same thing, and now it ends in a Game 5. Baseball is unbelievable.”

    Guardians boss Stephen Vogt echoed that.

    “Wow, what a great baseball game,” he said. “I feel like every game in this series has been a good baseball game…just a well-played baseball game on both sides and a lot of fun.”

    Vogt was under the media spotlight after the Game 3 loss, when Hinch seemingly outplayed every strategic move he made. The script flipped on Thursday and David Fry, who was struck out twice by Tigers reliever Beau Brieske with runners on base Wednesday, got redemption.

    The Tigers had taken a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning. Cleveland’s pesky leadoff hitter, Steven Kwan (three hits), kept the top of the seventh alive with a two-out single off lefty Sean Guenther. Hinch called up Brieske, who had not allowed a run in 5.1 innings this postseason.

    Vogt countered, sending the right-handed Fry to pinch-hit for the left-handed Kyle Manzardo. It was déjà vu starting in Game 3, but much later in the game.

    Brieske took the lead 1-2, then centered a 90 mph fastball after a wild pitch and Fry fired it into the visitor’s bullpen. Game changer.

    Bats and bodies poured out of the Guardians’ dugout in jubilation. It had been a while since they had anything to report.

    “These are elite players at the highest level and so it is a competition,” Hinch said. “It’s incredible to see these guys keep fighting. You make a little mistake or a hitable pitch – and we were just a few pitches away from popping them out, he barely gets into the stands – and he stays up a fastball and drives it out of the ballpark.”

    Fry struck again in the top of the ninth. With runners on the corners and one out, Fry executed a perfect safety squeeze bunt to score an insurance run.

    Homer and a safety squeeze in consecutive at-bats with an elimination game on the line? Wow, indeed.

    “Our guys have been working on it all year,” Vogt said. “It’s a tool that we use to go after that extra run or to increase the lead. And for David, when I talked to him, I said, ‘Hey, do you want to do this?’ He said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve had a lot of bumps in my life, I’m confident.’

    “And Rocchio (Brayan Rocchio, the third-place runner)… you can’t say enough about that. Perfect jump, perfect slide. Everything went well on that play.”

    The Tigers were down two early in the game and had no intention of stopping pushing. Riley Greene (two hits and a walk) and Wenceel Perez singled against lefty reliever Tim Herrin in the eighth.

    Vogt immediately went to his worldly closer Emmanuel Clase. Clase quelled the threat in the eighth, but if you haven’t noticed, the Tigers aren’t stopping.

    Rookie Justyn-Henry Malloy led off the ninth with a pinch-hit double and scored on an one-out groundout by rookie Jace Jung. As the crowd stood on their feet and waved orange towels, hoping for another miracle finish, Clase ended it by striking out Matt Vierling.

    “We’re one win away,” Torkelson said. “We don’t want it easy. And we knew it wouldn’t be easy. That’s the way we like it.”

    More: For the second game in a row, Tigers set a postseason attendance record

    Things could be tougher than they’d like in Game 5. Slugger Kerry Carpenter left the game after scoring the go-ahead run in the sixth and limped badly. He was tested after the match for a possible left hamstring injury.

    “He got about third and I think we all saw him limping back to the dugout,” Hinch said. “He couldn’t continue so we have to get him checked out. Any time a player like him has to leave the game it’s worrying. But I’ll put all thoughts on hold until the doctors give me an update and he gets imaging and all the things that we have to do it before Saturday.”

    Also, catcher Jake Rogers, who had his left wrist and forearm wrapped after the game, was seen entering the X-ray room. More information will be known on Friday.

    The Tigers took the lead in very Tigerball fashion.

    With two on and two outs in a 2-2 game, Hinch pulled Torkelson, who singled earlier in the game, and sent up rookie Perez to pinch-hit against right-handed reliever Hunter Gaddis.

    Play every advantage, no matter how marginal it seems on paper.

    Perez delivered. He dropped a broken-bat single into shallow center field and Carpenter scored. But the Tigers left the bases loaded in that inning and were 1 of 11 with runners in scoring position overall.

    “Obviously there were opportunities we could have taken advantage of,” said Parker Meadows, who scored in all six postseason games. “That’s just the game. You win some, you lose some. We’ll go into Saturday with the exact same mentality and the same plan and try to win the game.”

    The teams traded solo home runs in the fifth.

    It was only a matter of time before Jose Ramirez left his mark on this series. It happened with two outs in the top of the fifth. Lefty reliever Tyler Holton tried to sneak a second straight changeup past him, but Holton left it in the middle of the plate.

    Ramirez, hitting right-handed, destroyed it. The ball left his bat at 110 miles per hour and flew 450 feet over the Tigers’ bullpen in left field. It was his hardest hit home run of the season, but only his second hit in this series.

    “Maybe I should stop talking about him,” said Hinch, who has praised Ramirez throughout the series. “I hate it when he starts. I like the player on the other side. We’ve kept him in a pretty good place so far, but in the fourth game of the series he shows exactly what he’s capable of. is.”

    Zach McKinstry answered from the bottom of the inning, hitting a solo homer in the opposite field off Guardians’ starter Tanner Bibee. McKinstry is now 5-for-15 against him, including a double in Game 1.

    Having Skubal on the mound for Game 5 certainly helps soften the shock of Thursday’s late loss.

    “He was built for this moment,” Torkelson said.

    But as many times as this young Tigers team has seemed on the brink since the trade deadline, this is the first time they’ve literally faced elimination.

    “We’ve faced adversity all year,” Meadows said. “We’ll just continue with this day by day. It’s an elimination game, but that won’t change the way we look at things.”

    Hinch agreed.

    “Oh, we’ll be ready,” he said. “These elimination games are incredible. Everything we’ve played for so far will now take place on Saturday. Our guys can reset and tonight we’ll pack up. Tomorrow we’ll get on a plane. We’ll do a quick practice and get a chance to do it on their property.

    “And I expect the Guardians to be ready to play as well. Why shouldn’t these two teams come out with everything they’ve got on Saturday.”

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