By Cody Stavenhagen, Tyler Kepner and Brittany Ghiroli<\/p>\n
DETROIT \u2014 With their season on the brink, the much-maligned Detroit Tigers offense finally woke up.<\/p>\n
No. 9 batter Javier B\u00e1ez went 2-for-4, homering and driving in four runs as part of a seven-run stretch in the sixth and seventh innings that propelled the Tigers to a 9-3 comeback win over the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday afternoon in Game 4 of the American League Division Series. Riley Greene and Gleyber Torres also homered in Detroit\u2019s strongest offensive showing this October.<\/p>\n
A year ago, the Tigers\u2019 rallying call in an improbable playoff run became \u201cDon\u2019t let the Tigers get hot.\u201d And after a listless first half of the game, Detroit\u2019s lineup showed exactly why opponents should fear a sudden reawakening, wrapping out 11 hits from the fifth inning on to erase an early three-run deficit.<\/p>\n
The Mariners squandered an early chance to blow the game open, scoring a solo run in the second, fourth and fifth innings. Josh Naylor had three hits, two runs scored and appeared to be telegraphing some of the Tigers pitches from second base. In the end, whether Naylor really had signs or was bluffing, it didn\u2019t matter for the M\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The series-evening win sets up a pivotal Game 5 showdown on Friday in Seattle, which could be a rematch of Game 1\u2019s Tarik Skubal and George Kirby.<\/p>\n
Redemption for Riley Greene<\/p>\n
Before his sixth-inning at-bat, Greene was stuck in an 0-for-9 slide. Many of his at-bats over the past month have been filled with puzzling strikeouts or rollover groundballs. He made a throwing error in Game 3 and had been wearing the brunt of criticism and boos from Tigers fans.<\/p>\n
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, though, has issued a warning more than once this season: When Greene gets hot, someone will pay for it. Whether this becomes a hot streak is still pending. But Greene lifted a lazy slider deep into the right-centerfield seats to give the Tigers a 4-3 lead and jolt life into the Comerica Park crowd. Greene hit the home run off the left-handed Gabe Speier. Greene\u2019s OPS against left-handed pitching had tumbled to .620 in the regular season. But Wednesday, he connected with the biggest swing of his life.<\/p>\n
Tigers\u2019 containment of fourth-inning trouble was huge<\/p>\n
After a controversial early hook for Tigers starter Casey Mize, the Mariners loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth inning off Tigers reliever Tyler Holton, prompting Hinch to go with late-inning arm Kyle Finnegan. Finnegan escaped nearly unscathed, getting Victor Robles to bounce into a double play and J.P. Crawford to pop up to give the Mariners just one run. The lack of offense would come back to haunt the Mariners.<\/p>\n
Tigers offense roars back<\/p>\n
Mariners starter Bryce Miller had a 5.68 ERA in the regular season, but he entered Game 4 with a stellar track record against the Tigers. Miller had never allowed a single earned run in 19 career innings against Detroit. For the first four innings Wednesday, Detroit\u2019s meager offense again looked lost and listless. Trailing 3-0, the crowd was booing the home team. The manager was under fire. The mood was generally awful.<\/p>\n
And then \u2026 Spencer Torkelson singled. Dillon Dingler doubled. After Mariners manager Dan Wilson lifted Miller in favor of Speier, pinch hitter Jahmai Jones laced a double down the left-field line, and B\u00e1ez \u2014 the maligned star turned Tigers hero \u2014 lined a single to center (after juuust missing a homer foul down the left-field line) to tie the score.<\/p>\n
That return to the realm of the living set the tone for what became a five-run victory in Detroit. In the sixth, B\u00e1ez\u2019s two-run homer served as the de facto knockout punch.<\/p>\n
The Tigers head back to Seattle with their ace on the mound. The Mariners have somehow beaten Skubal three times this season. Can they do it a fourth time?<\/p>\n
Mariners bullpen falters<\/p>\n
Miller still managed to pitch well in his postseason debut, becoming the fourth consecutive Mariner to pitch into the fifth inning and hold the Tigers to two or fewer runs. But the team\u2019s usually trusty bullpen couldn\u2019t hold it there.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the Tigers have figured out the Mariners relievers, or the element of the unknown in a short series has dissipated. Speier \u2014 Seattle\u2019s most trusted lefty \u2014 has pitched in three of the series\u2019 four games, and Eduard Bazardo has pitched in all four. The duo allowed five runs over five outs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Cody Stavenhagen, Tyler Kepner and Brittany Ghiroli DETROIT \u2014 With their season on the brink, the much-maligned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[372,363,481,99],"class_list":["post-211156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-mlb","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}