Dillon Dingler sent one over the fence in the sixth inning, Wenceel Pérez drove in two RBIs during a four-run seventh inning, and the Detroit Tigers beat the Guardians 6-3 on Thursday to advance to the ALDS.
For the second consecutive year, the Detroit squad have won a Wild Card Series on the road. Detroit travel to the Mariners' home for the Division Series with Game 1 on Saturday.
The AL West champion Mariners, the second seed, took four of the six regular-season matchups from the Detroit, who were the third wild card.
Ramírez drove in the Guardians' initial run. The Guardians, AL Central champs were trailing by 15.5 games in the start of July before pulling off the biggest comeback in division or league play in MLB history.
However, they ran out of steam in the best-of-three series as the Tigers turned the page after posting the second-worst record in the majors in last month (seven wins and seventeen losses).
The game was knotted at 1-1 with two outs in the sixth inning when Dingler got an elevated changeup from Joey Cantillo on a 1-1 count and sent it 401 feet into the seats in left-center field to give Detroit the lead.
It was also the initial playoff hit and RBI for the Tigers catcher.
Detroit then broke it open in the seventh by sending 10 batters to the dish and racking up four runs.
With an out and the bases loaded, Pérez lined a base hit to right field off Erik Sabrowski to score Báez and Meadows. Gaddis came in and gave up run-scoring singles to Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, which plated Kerry Carpenter and Pérez.
Kyle Finnegan earned the victory, setting down all four hitters he confronted. Cantillo took the loss.
The Tigers got on the board first in the third. With an out and runners at first and third, Carpenter hit a grounder down the first-base line that ricocheted off Kayfus’ mitt when he tried to back hand it. The baseball skidded into foul ground near the seats as Parker Meadows scored, Carpenter advanced to second and Gleyber Torres advanced to third on what the scorekeeper ruled a double.
The Guardians tied it in the fourth. George Valera started the inning with a double to the right-field alley and came home on José Ramírez’s base hit to right-center on a knuckle curve by the pitcher on a 3-2 count.
The single was the fortieth knock of Ramírez’s playoff career, making him the fifth player in team history to reach that milestone.
In the eighth frame, José Ramírez reached on a missed catch error by Detroit reliever Will Vest to score Rocchio and Kwan. But he was thrown out at second base.
