Guardians 5, Tigers 4: Late dinger and a squeeze dooms Detroiters

It was a back-and-forth affair, but a two-run home run pushed the visitors ahead to stay.

The Tigers’ push towards the American League Championship Series would have to wait until another day, as Game 4 of their Division Series was won by Cleveland, 5-4.

Reese Olson, the Baby-Faced Assassin, started for the Tigers. He came into Game 1 of this ALDS with none out in the first inning after Tyler Holton had a bad outing as an opener — and, really, if you Porcello-out the first pitch he threw, he did pretty well in five innings. He’s been building his stamina throughout September and October, starting off with 50 pitches and gradually going upwards.

The Guardians went with their Game 1 starter, Tanner Bibee, who tamed the Tigers over 4 ⅔ shutout innings on October 5 by giving up four hits, striking out six, walking one and hitting a batter. He’s had a solid sophomore season with a 12-8 record, 3.47 ERA and WHIP of 1.117, and has struck out a little more than a batter an inning. He gives up more fly balls than the average pitcher; would this play well at Comerica and its spacious outfield?

Olson wasn’t missing a lot of bats early on in the first, with Steven Kwan and Kyle Manzardo each singling to put a pair of runners on. After José Ramírez struck out, Kwan stole third but Olson got Josh Naylor to strike out swinging for the second out. Alas, Lane Thomas singled to left to score Kwan for a 1-0 Cleveland lead, their first run since Game 1.

Parker Meadows led off the bottom of the inning with a bloop double to left that fell in between three (presumably) good fielders, but he was ultimately stranded there.

In the bottom of the second Colt Keith led off with a walk, Spencer Torkelson followed with a single that pushed Keith up to third, and Zach McKinstry walked to load the bases with none out. Trey Sweeney hit a fly ball to centre that was deep enough to score Keith and tie the game at 1. Alas, Jake Rogers hit a sizzling liner to shortstop on the next pitch and Torkelson was doubled off second to end the inning. It was a bang bang play, but that’s a little disappointing, I’m not gonna lie.

Olson put another pair of runners on with two, two-out singles in the third which got Sean Guenther up in the bullpen, but Will Brennan struck out swinging on a low curveball to end the threat.

He carried through a 1-2-3 fourth, but that would be the end of Olson’s day as Holton came on to start the fifth. Olson’s final line was pretty good: 4 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 K… which is about what I expected and/or hoped-for before the game. He threw 47 of his 74 pitches for strikes (63.5%), which isn’t great but isn’t terrible.

Ramírez can only be contained for so long, and he unleashed his fury on a Holton changeup deep to left field for a solo home run and 2-1 Cleveland lead. I mean, hey, at least it was only a solo shot, which is about as good as you can hope for with that guy.

The Tigers got the run back in the bottom of the inning from an unlikely source: Zach McKinstry smacked an opposite-field solo home run to lead off the inning and to re-tie the game at 2.

That was the end of Bibee’s day, and it marked two straight postseason starts in which Cleveland’s arguably-best starter didn’t get out of the fifth inning. Now, I know the Guardians’ bullpen is great, but if you keep going to the same pitchers, the more times a batter sees a relief pitcher in a series, the advantage tilts a little in favour of the batter… and Cade Smith was brought in for the fourth straight game.

Holton had a 1-2-3 sixth, and Smith carried on to the bottom of the inning but allowed a Kerry Carpenter single and walked Greene to put two runners on with one out. Smith was dismissed, Hunter Gaddis made the jog across the outfield, and he struck out Keith for the second out. But pinch-hitter Wenceel Pérez dug out a slider to poke a short fly ball to left field and Carpenter scored from second to put the Tigers up 3-2, their first lead of the game.

Guenther finally got into the ballgame to start the seventh, and he got a couple of outs but surrendered a single to, who else, Kwan. (Shoot, man, Kwan’s a pest. What a pain in the neck that guy is. I’d love to have him on my team.) Beau Brieske was called in, a wild pitch got Kwan to second, but it didn’t matter as pinch-hitter David Fry turned a fastball around and deposited it over the left-field fence for a two-run home run and a 4-3 Cleveland lead.

In the bottom of the inning Jace Jung, pinch-hitting for Carpenter who strained his left hamstring, walked with two outs. But Vierling struck out looking and that ended the inning.

Jackson Jobe came in to start the eighth, and he was firing fastballs at 99.6 mph. With two outs Brennan hit an 0-2 pitch off the right-field wall for a double, but Keith made a great diving play on a ground ball to save a run and get the third out at first.

Greene led off the bottom of the eighth — traditionally, this is the inning in which the Tigers make their dramatic comebacks — with a single up the middle. Andy Ibáñez, pinch-hitting for Keith, took a fly ball to the right-field wall but unfortunately came up just short for the first out. Pérez, though, followed with a single to left to put runners on first and second with one out… and Cleveland manager Steven Vogt went to his closer, Emmanuel Clase. McKinstry hit a dribbler to the right side that acted like a bunt to move the runners up to second and third with two out, but Sweeney struck out on a 101 mph cutter to end the inning.

Jobe carried on into the ninth, which felt like stretching their luck a bit too much, and he gave up a pair of one-out singles to put runners on the corners. Will Vest — gee, I wish the Tigers didn’t have to use him tonight — came on. Fry laid down a perfect bunt back to Vest who threw home but didn’t get the runner coming down the line from third and Cleveland was up 5-3. Ramírez struck out, Josh Naylor grounded out, and the game was headed to the bottom of the ninth.

Justyn-Henry Malloy started off the bottom of the ninth with a pinch-hit double down the left field line to bring the tying run to the plate. Meadows grounded out softly to second which moved Malloy up to third, and Jung also grounded out to second to plate Malloy for a 5-4 score. But with two outs and down a run against the toughest closer in the game, scoring more than one would be a pretty tall order… and, indeed, Vierling struck out to end the game to send the series back to Cleveland for Game 5. That will be in Cleveland on Saturday at 8:08 pm EDT now that the Yankees have closed out the Royals.

Box Score: Guardians 5, Tigers 4

Seen in downtown Detroit earlier this week

Looks like our advertising department was hard at work.

Correction: I’m being told we don’t have an advertising department.

Numbers and Notes

• You know that thing this year where a boadload of pitchers had lously-looking numbers at Toledo but have been great in Detroit? Well, I looked at Reese Olson’s minor-league stats, and in 2023 in Toledo he had an ERA of 6.38 in ten starts. Then, naturally, for the rest of 2023 in Detroit his ERA was 3.99, and this year it was 3.53 in 112 ¹⁄₃ innings in the majors.
• If you dig one (thin) layer down into more advanced stats, his WHIP in ‘23 in Toledo was a terrible 1.745… and then last year and this year in Detroit they were 1.119 and 1.184 respectively. What the heck is in the water in Ohio, anyway?!
• Our thoughts go to the people of Florida who have had to deal with yet another hurricane. If you haven’t seen the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, whoa, that thing is absolutely shredded. If they can’t fix the roof by April, well, the Rays are going to have to find somewhere else to play.
• If your sky is clear tonight and your city lights aren’t too bad, there are reports of tinges of the Northern Lights being seen as far south as Florida. Look to the north.
• On this date in 1846, English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, a scant 17 days after the planet itself was discovered by Johann Galle (with a big assist from calculations by Urbain Le Verrier). Since it orbits Neptune in the opposite direction to Neptune’s revolution around the Sun — the only moon in the Solar System known to do this — it’s theorized that Triton is a Kuiper Belt object that was captured by Neptune’s gravity at a strange angle.