Detroit — The brooms were ready Sunday at Comerica Park as the Detroit Tigers entered a series finale against the Chicago White Sox with a shot at a sweep.
And it looked like they were about to get stored back in the closet when Dillon Dingler stepped to the plate with two outs and runners on the corners in the bottom of the ninth inning, Detroit trailing by a run.
“I think it’s something about his heartbeat,” Hinch said of Dingler, who leads MLB with two-out RBI, coming through in the clutch.
Dingler got into a two-strike count before he knocked a single into left field on a ground ball between third base and shortstop, scoring Jahmai Jones from third to tie the score as a sold-out crowd exploded on Father’s Day.
“And I feel like when Dillon’s up with the runners in scoring position and with two outs, he’s just trying to hit the ball hard,” Hinch said. “And if it goes far, cool. If it doesn’t, it finds a hole, and we continue.”
In extras, the Tigers finished off the deal, surrendering a run on a pair of sacrifice flies in the top of the 10th inning before singles from Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson moved Kerry Carpenter, the ghost runner, to third and then scored him. A defensive lapse by White Sox first baseman Jacob Gonzalez, who threw home to no force out, left the bases loaded for Matt Vierling, who flicked a single into right field, scoring Greene and sending Comerica Park into an even greater furor.
Detroit (33-44) swept division rival Chicago (39-37) in three games, capped by Sunday’s 5-4 comeback victory in extra innings. A Tigers squad looking to kickstart a run from the basement of the AL Central nearly missed an opportunity to close the gap, but instead ended the weekend riding a high after a divisional sweep capped by an extra innings walk off.
“Sometimes it falls, just like Carp a couple nights ago, with me today,” Vierling said of his bloop single walkoff, similar to one from Carpenter on Friday. “Just trying to put the ball in play, and good things happen.”
The sweep is something Hinch got asked about before the game, and he spoke about how Detroit needed to get “greedy” now that it found itself in a position to send a division rival packing with three losses. And with Sunday’s late rally, the Tigers did just that.
“I just believe in the character of this team, and we’ve gotta go step by step,” Hinch said after the game. “So, um, we really shouldn’t look any further than the Yankees. We should celebrate tonight. We just swept a team that’s ahead of us. I thought we showed up. I thought we had some guts. I thought we’d executed in a lot of spots. And we weren’t perfect and still found a way to win three games. So, we’ll still stay grounded with what we’re doing, and we’re gonna need to keep chipping away, one step at a time, out of this hole that took a couple months to get in.”
Keider Montero dazzled for five innings to start on Sunday, putting down the first 13 batters he faced in order and only coughing up a perfect game on a 50-mph dribbler for an infield hit to Braden Montgomery with one out in the top of the fifth inning.
And in those first five frames, Montero did well by pitching to contact and letting his defense make plays as he struck out just two batters through five innings as his outfielders and infielders — particularly Zach McKinstry — went to work.
And it was hyper-efficient for Montero, who got through the first five innings on 50 pitches and through the first six on about 60.
But it took two swings in the sixth inning for Montero’s work to come undone.
A leadoff single to Tristan Peters didn’t seem overly harmful, especially with the soft-hitting No. 9 hitter, Luisangel Acuna, up next.
Instead, Montero hung a knuckle curve on the second pitch that Acuna punished, bashing his first home run of the season and putting the White Sox up, 2-1, as he drove the ball out to the visitors’ bullpen.
Hinch felt those mistakes to Peters and Acuna were Montero’s only real blemishes, and the pitcher concurred he didn’t execute the curveball to Acuna well.
The third time through the order then proved the bugaboo for Montero, despite any efficiency, as he gave up three more hits and another run, which came on a ground rule double by Peters in the top of the seventh, a hit that could’ve been more damaging if the ball caromed around the left-field corner instead of hopping into the stands.
Montero finished giving up six hits over seven innings with three earned runs and three strikeouts. He did it all on 76 pitches. He left the game with Detroit trailing, 3-1, after silencing White Sox bats for most of the afternoon.
“Just kept my work [the same], being aggressive, attacking their hitters,” Montero said, through a translator, of his second start against the White Sox this season. “I know they’re very aggressive so I was trusting my pitches, trust my teammates, trust the fan base.”
BOX SCORE: Tigers 5, White Sox 4, 10 innings
A momentary 1-0 lead, with Colt Keith hustling to score from second on a McKinstry single, had seemingly diminished Detroit’s hopes for a sweep. A solo home run by Dillon Dingler in the bottom of the eighth inning, his team-leading 18th, jolted the crowd at Comerica awake, but didn’t seem likely to spur the comeback.
But it was Jones, much maligned for his 0-fer streak pinch hitting, who came up with the first game-changing hit at the final opportunity, narrowly beating out a throw from shortstop with two outs in the ninth inning for a single.
Jones moved down the line at breakneck speed, hoping for any pause or bobble on the infield to help him reach safely. And of course, the play was reviewed.
“Everything,” Jones said of what went through his head as the play got looked at. “Please, Lord, let this be a hit. It’s Father’s Day, man. But no, just after watching the replay — you really never know when it goes to replay — but I was just, you know, fingers crossed. And when I finally got the verdict that I was safe, it was a good feeling.”
Jones advanced to third base when Kevin McGonigle singled into right field the next at bat, setting the table for Dingler to play hero and tie the score with his single. Detroit nearly won it in the ninth on a ball off Carpenter’s bat, save for a good defensive play by Gonzalez at first base to end the threat.
“I think we can do a lot of different things on the field, and I think that’s why we put our record — stash it away, try not to stare at it every day,” Hinch said. “You know, it doesn’t define our team, and it doesn’t really illustrate where our strengths are. And, you know, whether it’s a gutsy offensive performance today with double digit hits, walks, and obviously, pretty good pitching.”
The White Sox entered the weekend in Detroit leading the AL Central. Detroit entered in last place. The Tigers aren’t much out of last place after taking three in a row over the weekend, but it’s brought things closer to within reach and with plenty of season still on the horizon.
And if nothing else, Sunday helped illustrate how little it takes to turn around one’s luck, and just how fast the about-face can be made.
“Some days you’re riding high, some days you’re riding low, but you’re just trying to ride the wave the whole time,” Jones said. “I feel like hitting’s contagious. So when the guys get rolling, everybody, I feel like, in the lineup gets rolling. Just trying to focus on that. It was a really big series win for us, series sweep. And trying to take the rest of the momentum into the rest of this week.”
Andrew Graham is a freelance writer.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: ‘We had some guts:’ Tigers walk off White Sox in extras, sweep series
Reporting by Andrew Graham, Special to The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Andrew Graham, Special to The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
