Chicago — Monday’s series opener against the Cubs had several positives for the Tigers. They still needed a late rally to make sure they went to sleep happy.
Kenley Jansen struck out Alex Bregman to escape a bases-loaded jam in the ninth inning before Dillon Dingler added the go-ahead RBI in the 10th to help lift Detroit to an 8-6 victory.
“It was an incredible atmosphere,” Dingler said afterward. “Very topsy-turvy game right there but after Kenley got that big, big strikeout right there, it was huge.”
Dingler snapped a 16-game homerless streak, finished 4 for 5 with three RBIs and added his third multihomer game to his first All-Star season; Gleyber Torres returned and contributed right away after rehabbing a left oblique strain for more than a month; and Detroit kept Cubs All-Star centerfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong from doing any damage on the bases.
The Tigers are 3-1 since the All-Star break and can win their fifth series in six tries with a victory Tuesday night.
“Oh, we’ve got momentum,” Dingler added. “The guys’ attitudes have been the same, even when we were down in May.
“We’re the same team. We’re just having a bit more fun out there.”
There were plenty of Tigers jerseys and tees among the crowd of 39,023 and Detroit made it worth staying to the end.
Greene’s leadoff grounder in the tenth appeared to strike reliever Trent Thornton’s (3-3) left heel. That brought on Chicago’s Javier Assad, who saw Dingler lace a single through the left-field gap to put the Tigers ahead for good. Kerry Carpenter reached on a fielding error and Spencer Torkelson followed with a two-run single to give Detroit some breathing room.
Tyler Holton allowed a run and put the tying run on in the 10th but hung on for his first save.
Greene hit a three-run shot — his second home run in as many days — to give the Tigers a 3-0 lead seven pitches into the game and Dingler followed him with a solo shot to cap the four-run first.
Torres, recalled before the game, went 2 for 3 with a pair of walks and scored a run from the second spot in the lineup hours after manager A.J. Hinch said his return made the top of the lineup more dangerous.
“I love that he had a little bit of nerves and energy,” Hinch said of the three-time All-Star. “He conducted his at-bats really well and it contributed to a win.”
Torres singled on the first pitch he saw to start the first-inning surge. Colt Keith followed with a double that just missed clearing the left-center wall, then Greene homered deep into the right-field bleachers to stake the Tigers to an early lead. Dingler, the next batter, sent his 20th home run to centerfield.
All that came off Cubs starter Jameson Taillon, who was making his first start in six weeks after mending a hamstring injury. He lasted the first 4 1/3 innings, an out longer than Detroit’s Jack Flaherty.
Flaherty surrendered back-to-back homers to Seiya Suzuki and Michael Busch in the third that cut the lead to 4-3. The right-hander allowed four hits, two walks and struck out four while looking for his third straight win on the mound.
“Some good, some bad,” he said of his performance. “Good team win against a really good team. It’s never an easy place to win; so up-and-down.”
The wind was blowing out most of the night and it was much more humid after the game began. Wrigley Field might be the only park in the majors where such conditions only yield five combined home runs.
“I’m never surprised here when the wind is blowing out,” Hinch said. “Most of the game, I just stare out at the flag in center field and wonder, you know, ‘Is it ever gonna stop?’”
Dingler added his 21st, another solo homer, in the eighth off reliever Tyler Ferguson but the two-run lead didn’t last long.
Chicago’s Ian Happ hit a two-run shot off Kyle Finnegan to knot the score in the eighth. Jansen (2-4), working for the second time in as many days, loaded the bases an inning later but struck out Alex Bregman to keep the game tied.
Another positive? Kevin McGonigle made a graceful running reach to rob Crow-Armstrong of a single in the first.
It was Dingler’s third multi-homer game of his career and this season. The most recent came during a June 9 win over Minnesota.
The game’s first pitch was delayed 30 minutes by rain that never really materialized. A large, fast-moving storm appeared headed for the park about 40 minutes before the start, but all the neighborhood got was a few stray drops.
Hinch was fine with the decision.“If it would have (rained), we would’ve been pretty upset if we had gotten wet. Like anything, you play it as conservative as you can.”
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Tigers rally late in ‘topsy-turvy game’ to defeat Cubs 8-6
Reporting by Scott Held, Special to The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Scott Held, Special to The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
