{"id":190880,"date":"2025-10-05T06:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T06:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/190880\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T06:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T06:30:10","slug":"zach-mckinstry-lifts-detroit-tigers-over-seattle-mariners-in-11-innings-in-alds-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/190880\/","title":{"rendered":"Zach McKinstry lifts Detroit Tigers over Seattle Mariners in 11 innings in ALDS opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 Zach McKinstry<\/a> was banking on Carlos Vargas<\/a> throwing him a sinker, and that’s precisely what the All-Star third baseman got.<\/p>\n

McKinstry singled home the tiebreaking run with two outs in the 11th inning and the Detroit Tigers<\/a> outlasted the Seattle Mariners<\/a> for a 3-2 victory in Game 1 of their AL Division Series on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Kerry Carpenter<\/a> hit a two-run homer in the fifth for the resurgent Tigers, who squandered a huge lead in the AL Central and nearly collapsed entirely down the stretch before squeezing into the playoffs. <\/p>\n

After winning their Wild Card Series at Cleveland, they can take a commanding 2-0 lead in this best-of-five matchup against AL West champion Seattle with dominant ace Tarik Skubal<\/a> on the mound Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll year long, I feel like we were either down or we were up,\u201d McKinstry said. \u201cWe\u2019re up right now, and we\u2019re getting a lot of wins. Things are going our way.”<\/p>\n

In the first extra-inning game of this postseason, McKinstry pounced on the first pitch he saw from Vargas, a 99.6 mph sinker, and grounded it up the middle to score Spencer Torkelson<\/a> from second base. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was kind of leaning on the, you know, he was going to throw 80% two-seams. And just kind of leaning on that and knowing what he was going to throw there,\u201d McKinstry said. \u201cJust trying to attack early.\u201d <\/p>\n

Torkelson, who walked leading off the 11th, advanced to second on a wild pitch by Vargas earlier in the inning.<\/p>\n

Unlike during the regular season, there is no automatic runner placed at second base to begin extra innings in the postseason.<\/p>\n

It was the Mariners\u2019 second consecutive postseason loss at home that went extra innings. They were beaten 1-0 by Houston in 18 innings on Oct. 15, 2022. <\/p>\n

Will Vest<\/a> worked two perfect innings for the win, and Keider Montero<\/a> got three outs for his first major league save. Montero extended the scoreless start to his postseason career and put the finishing touches on seven innings of one-run ball by Detroit\u2019s bullpen.<\/p>\n

The Mariners struck first, thanks to a solo homer by Julio Rodr\u00edguez in the fourth inning. Rodr\u00edguez, fresh off his second season with at least 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases, launched an elevated four-seam fastball from rookie Troy Melton<\/a>, who was making just his fifth career start. <\/p>\n

Seattle\u2019s lead didn\u2019t last long, though. Carpenter capitalized on an elevated fastball from right-hander George Kirby<\/a> in a two-strike count, depositing it into the right-field seats to give the Tigers a 2-1 advantage. <\/p>\n

Left-handed reliever Gabe Speier<\/a> was warming up in the Seattle bullpen, but manager Dan Wilson elected to have Kirby face the left-handed-hitting Carpenter. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought George continued to throw the ball pretty well there and still had pretty good stuff and a lot left in the tank,\u201d Wilson said, \u201cand he had been in a couple of tough spots earlier, but really pitched out of it well. And, like I said, (Carpenter) was able to get to the one up in the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the fifth career homer for Carpenter off Kirby, making him the fourth player in major league history with five or more hits off a particular pitcher \u2014 and all of them home runs. It also was the second career postseason homer for Carpenter, who set a career high with 26 during the regular season. <\/p>\n

\u201cI tend to see him well,” Carpenter said. “He\u2019s so good, though. He has great stuff, and in the first inning he was really good. So yeah, I\u2019m pretty confident against anybody I go against. I was seeing him well tonight, especially after that first at-bat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirby was otherwise sharp in his second postseason start, striking out five across five innings. <\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez ensured the Mariners did not go down easily, poking an RBI single to right in the sixth that tied it at 2. <\/p>\n

Seattle closer Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz worked two scoreless innings, the first time he had done so since he was a rookie in 2019 with San Diego. <\/p>\n

The Mariners didn\u2019t get hits from any players besides Rodr\u00edguez and AL MVP contender Cal Raleigh<\/a>, who chipped in three singles for his third career three-hit game in the postseason. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our bullpen guys, including Troy, even though Troy started, it was a job well done in an environment where the fans were looking to help them get anything started,\u201d Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. \u201cWe would squash the rally every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Mariners RHP Luis Castillo<\/a> is expected to start against Skubal in Game 2. Castillo is 1-2 with a 1.83 ERA in 19 2\/3 postseason innings with 19 strikeouts. Skubal, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, pitched 7 2\/3 innings of one-run ball in the Wild Card Series opener against Cleveland. He has a 2.03 ERA in four postseason appearances. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Andrew Destin, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 Zach McKinstry was banking on Carlos Vargas throwing him a sinker, and that’s precisely what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-190880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}