Dingler, Pérez lead Tigers past Guardians 6-3 and into the AL Division Series against Mariners
CLEVELAND (AP) — Dillon Dingler homered in the sixth inning, Wenceel Pérez drove in a pair of runs in a four-run seventh and the Detroit Tigers defeated the Cleveland Guardians 6-3 Thursday to advance to the American League Division Series.
It is the second straight season the Tigers have won a Wild Card Series on the road. Detroit heads to Seattle for the Division Series with Game 1 on Saturday.
The AL West champion Mariners, the second seed, took four of the six regular-season meetings from the Tigers, who were the third wild card.
José Ramírez drove in Cleveland’s lone run. The AL Central champion Guardians were 15 1/2 games back in early July before completing the biggest comeback in division or league play in baseball history.
However, they ran out of steam in the best-of-three series as Detroit turned the page after posting the second-worst record in the majors in September (7-17).
The game was tied 1-all with two outs in the sixth inning when Dingler got an elevated changeup from Joey Cantillo on a 1-1 count and drove it 401 feet into the bleachers in left-center to put the Tigers on top.
It was also the first postseason hit and RBI for the Tigers catcher.
Detroit then broke it open in the seventh by sending 10 batters to the plate and scoring four times.
With one out and the bases loaded, Pérez lined a base hit to right off Erik Sabrowski to drive in Javier Báez and Parker Meadows. Hunter Gaddis came in and gave up RBI base hits to Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, which brought in Kerry Carpenter and Pérez.
Kyle Finnegan got the win, retiring all four batters he faced. Cantillo took the loss.
The Tigers opened the scoring in the third. With one out and runners on the corners, Carpenter hit a grounder down the first-base line that deflected off C.J. Kayfus’ glove when he tried to back hand it. The ball rolled into foul territory near the stands as Parker Meadows scored, Carpenter went to second and Gleyber Torres advanced to third on what the official scorer ruled a double
The Guardians tied it in the fourth. George Valera led off with a double to the right-field corner and scored on José Ramírez’s base hit to right-center on a knuckle curve by Flaherty on a full count.
The single was the 40th hit of Ramírez’s postseason career, making him the fifth player in franchise history to reach that milestone.
In the eighth inning, Ramírez reached on missed catch error by Detroit reliever Will Vest to score Brayan Rocchio and Steven Kwan. But Ramírez was thrown out at second.
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