Extra special: 10th-inning homers by Sweeney, Greene give Tigers sweep of Guardians
Published in Baseball
CLEVELAND — The Detroit Tigers swept the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field this weekend.
They won the first two games despite scoring just three runs. They won the finale Sunday despite having one hit through nine innings and being one strike away from defeat.
Trey Sweeney, whose batting average is sinking ever close to the .200 mark, swatted an opposite-field three-run home run that triggered a six-run outburst in the top of the 10th inning, sending the Tigers to a 7-2 win, extending the Guardians' losing streak to an unfathomable 10 games.
Riley Greene, who had been hitless in the series, swatted his 22nd homer in the inning, a two-run shot also to left field.
More unlikely, all that damage came against right-hander Cade Smith, who has dominated the Tigers the last two years. Before the 10th inning, Tigers hitters were 3 for 26 against him with 13 strikeouts, not counting his 6 1/3 innings in the postseason, where he allowed just one run.
This one will leave a mark on the Guardians for a minute.
They exploited the Tigers' thin bullpen, breaking a 0-0 tie on an RBI-double by Steven Kwan in the bottom of the eighth off lefty Bailey Horn, in his first big-league leverage situation.
The Tigers, though, scratched out a run in the top of the ninth without a hit against closer Emmanuel Clase to extend the game.
Clase hit Spencer Torkelson to start the inning and manager AJ Hinch sent Zach McKinstry to pinch run. McKinstry stole second, went to third on a ground out and scored on a two-strike wild pitch with Parker Meadows batting.
Insane.
Reliever Chase Lee pitched around a leadoff double by Angel Martinez in the bottom of the ninth to get the game to extra innings.
The win puts the Tigers 13 games over .500 (57-34) and 13 games ahead of the Minnesota Twins in the American League Central. The Guardians, 40-48, are closer to the cellar than they are the Tigers.
It seemed like a different game, but Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, on the day he was expected to be named to his second straight All-Star team, was in complete command. He struck out 10 without a walk. He allowed three hits, two of them by Kwan. The first one was in the fourth, a ground-ball to first base. Skubal was late covering and Kwan beat the throw.
His second hit was a 54.4 mph bloop over the head of third baseman Javier Baez.
With two outs in the seventh, Martinez lined a double into the left field corner become the first Guardian to get into scoring position. Skubal reacted to that by emptying his tank.
Against Johnathan Rodriguez, he threw a 100-mph sinker, then a 101-mph four-seamer on his 91st and 92nd pitches. On pitch 93, he struck out Rodriguez with a changeup.
Skubal had his changeup dancing on a string all game. He threw 41 of them and got 15 whiffs on 25 swings. He got 20 whiffs overall on 52 swings.
Powerful performance. But it was a scoreless game when he departed.
It had been, until the 10th, a rough series for Tigers’ hitters. They scored three runs in the first two games, all on solo homers, though that was enough to win both games.
They only had two hits Saturday and one hit Sunday in regulation.
As good as Skubal was, Guardians right-hander Gavin Williams matched him zero for zero for six innings.
The Tigers worked three walks off Williams, who came in leading the American League in that category. Two of the walks game in the fifth, wrapped around an opposite-field single by Baez.
But Williams struck out Colt Keith to nix the threat.
Williams struck out eight in his six innings and turned it over to the stingy back end of the Guardians’ bullpen.
Hunter Gaddis got five outs. With two outs in the eighth, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt brought in lefty Erik Sabrowski.
Pinch-hitter Gleyber Torres and Matt Vierling walked. But Sabrowski struck out Greene on a 2-2 sinker that barely caught the bottom of the strike zone.
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