They blew a 15.5 game lead on the American League Central, with much of their slide coming in the final month of the season, but the Detroit Tigers are advancing to the next round of the MLB playoffs, defeating the Cleveland Guardians 6-3 against all odds in Game 3 of their Wild Card series.
The Tigers’ pitching staff allowed just one earned run, shutting down the Guardians’ bats for much of the afternoon while key position players like Kerry Carpenter and Wenceel Pérez rebounded from earlier struggles to come up with clutch hits, punching Detroit’s ticket to the Division Series for the second season in a row.
Here are the winners and losers from the decisive Game 3.
Winner: Kerry Carpenter (and A.J. Hinch)
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch has made a habit of pulling Kerry Carpenter from the game early and often this season, pinch-hitting for him when his spot comes up in the order and the opposing team has a left-handed pitcher on the mound.
Carpenter’s OPS sits 174 points lower against lefties than against righties and, when he’s playing at designated hitter as he did on Thursday, there’s no defensive loss in substituting for the lefty bat. The Tigers put two aboard with one out in the third, bringing Carpenter to the plate, and Guardians manager Stephen Vogt brought in left-hander Tim Herrin to win the matchup battle.
Hinch opted to trust Carpenter, who gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead with an RBI double and went on to pick up three walks with a run scored, vindicating his manager for the faith he received.
Winner: Tigers’ Bullpen
Detroit starting pitcher Jack Flaherty covered 4.2 innings as Hinch pulled him at one of the first signs of trouble, opting to bring in reliever Kyle Finnegan with a runner aboard rather than letting Flaherty face switch hitter Brayan Rocchio in the nine hole.
Finnegan ate up four outs on 27 pitches, not allowing any Guardians to reach and earning the win in the process as the Tigers’ bats surged ahead; Tyler Holton worked a seven pitch seventh after staying in the game for 2.1 innings the previous day and, although Tommy Kahnle allowed two hits, both of which came around to score on an error, he didn’t let Cleveland drive his pitch count up, ending his day after just ten offerings.
Will Vest entered to secure the win, blanking the Guardians for 1.2 innings on a respectable 22 pitches and, although the Tigers had to play a third game in their Wild Card series against Cleveland, their bullpen should have a decent amount of rest before beginning the Division Series in Seattle on Saturday, Oct. 4.
Loser: Guardians’ Offense
Cleveland had the third-worst offense in the league this season, averaging just 3.96 runs per game. While they managed to compile an 88-74 record on the strength of small ball and opportunistic hitting (like the two runs they scored via error in the eighth inning, keeping Detroit within reach), that offense proved their undoing in the postseason.
Cleveland logged just four hits in the first seven innings of play, allowing the Tigers to amass a 6-1 lead, and took just three at-bats all game with a runner in scoring position. A double play and a caught stealing of star third baseman José Ramírez helped wipe two more baserunners away.
Loser: Kyle Manzardo
Perhaps the most disappointing of Cleveland’s offensive performances was slugger Kyle Manzardo, who went 1-for-11 with a single and a walk during the Wild Card series. Manzardo hit 27 home runs during the regular season, his .768 OPS good for second on the team among qualified batters.
There’s plenty of swing-and-miss to his game, as one might expect from a power hitter, but a Cleveland team already starved for runs needed more from their cleanup hitter. The lowlight of his postseason series came in Game 1, when he hit a weak groundball to the mound that reliever Will Vest managed to glove in time to nail a runner at home plate, preventing the tying run from scoring.
