CLEVELAND — They’d been waiting since mid-summer, through August, through a painful September. The Tigers were still waiting as the playoffs began, waiting for another shot, looking for their moment. And then on a perfect sunny afternoon, here they came, swing by swing, hit by hit, the clutch Tigers who once held the best record in baseball.

Here they came and there they went, bounding out of the visitors dugout at Progressive Field Thursday, racing across the infield, leaping as if they’d just removed leg weights. Those weren’t leg weights, those were the Cleveland Guardians, the nemesis they can never escape, until now.

The Tigers finally shook the pressure and took their best swings, erupting in the seventh inning and hanging on for a 6-3 victory to capture the wild-card series, 2-1. The best-of-five ALDS starts Saturday night in Seattle, and the Mariners will be heavily favored. But for a team that loves to play the percentages, the Tigers aren’t bad at defying them either.

In the middle of another champagne-and-beer-soaked clubhouse, the players cheered and sang, and for the second time in a week, they called the owner into the middle and practically drowned him.

“This is a step on our journey,” said Christopher Ilitch, drenched to the skin. “We want to win a World Series and we’re laser focused on it. If it’s this year, great. If it’s not, we’re gonna keep at it until we get there. Careful, maybe we’ve woken a sleeping giant with this team.”

They awoke gradually and then suddenly, at precisely the right time. They’re back in the ALDS, freed from the stigma of a late-season collapse, perhaps crafting another unexpected turnaround.

This was a classically taut Tigers-Guardians game, tied 1-1 into the sixth inning. Up and down the lineup, hitters were struggling, but as AJ Hinch often says, it takes all 27 outs, but sometimes just one swing.

Dillon Dingler, who grew up not far from Cleveland and went to Ohio State, delivered the blast, a sixth-inning home run that broke the tie. He was hitless in the series until then.

“I was scratching and crawling a little bit, and I was able to get a pitch to hit and do a little damage,” Dingler said. “The team with the biggest momentum or the most momentum was the one that was going to carry on.”

Clutch pitching is as important as clutch hitting, and Hinch continued to churn his bullpen. After Jack Flaherty was pulled in the fifth, Kyle Finnegan, Tyler Holton and Will Vest all threw a scoreless inning-plus, helping slow Guardians’ stars Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan.

When it’s winner-take-all, it’s also all-hands-on-deck, and Hinch emphasized it more and more. He juggled the lineup slightly. He pinch hit for Riley Greene the previous game and ordered a couple of rare bunts. He was pulling pitchers earlier, hunting favorable matchups.

“There's a little extra urgency in the playoffs, and there should be,” Hinch said. “And you have to embrace it. You can't run from it. You can't be scared of it. You can't deny it. You've got to overcome it a little bit.”

One by one in the seventh, the Tigers peeled off the pressure like layers of clothing. Javy Báez, the star of the series, slammed a double to left. Parker Meadows laid down a bunt and beat the throw to first. Then with the bases loaded, Wenceel Perez rifled a single to right, scoring two to make it 4-1, and the Tigers dugout erupted.

Perez had been 0 for 9 in the series. He was five for his last 57 going back to the regular season. When his line drive dropped onto the outfield grass, he practically flew to first.

“Oh my God, my heart was pumping so hard, pumping so hard!” Perez said as champagne stung his eyes. “I was so happy. We always come with the same energy, no matter what’s going on, always trying to go forward.”

With a young roster lacking superstars (outside of Tarik Skubal of course), you can’t always count them in. But you can’t ever count them out, and this time of year, it’s hard to keep them out.

They reached the ALDS out of nowhere a year ago and lost in five games to the Guardians. Their ambitions rocketed as they sat atop the league most of this season, then crashed down the stretch. They slipped into the playoffs on the final weekend, taking the long road to get in and the short road back to Cleveland.

After leaving a record 15 runners on base in a 6-1 loss the other day, the Tigers preached serenity and unity. Hey, if you blow a 10-game division lead in less than a month, you don’t get fazed by much. Same for the Guardians, who overcame a 15-and-half-game deficit in July.

This is what happens when two strong-willed teams with inconsistent offenses and good pitching keep colliding. It seems like the score is always 1-1 or 2-1, and the next big swing could spark it, as it did in the Guardians’ five-run eighth inning in Game 2.

Pictures of serenity

Following that loss, the Tigers were pictures of serenity. Greene shrugged off the pinch-hitting episode. Kerry Carpenter emphasized they could lean on their playoff experience from last year, when they eliminated Houston in the wildcard round. It doesn’t always work this way, but when it works for the Tigers, good vibes beget good vibes.

After Perez’s hit supplied a 4-1 cushion, Spencer Torkelson and Greene followed with RBI singles, and redemption beckoned. After going 2 for 23 with runners in scoring position the first two games, the Tigers were 5 for 12 in the clincher.

“I don't know why, but in baseball, it seems like one good thing happens and then two, three, four, five at-bats in a row were exceptional,” Hinch said. “We wanted to get even more greedy and do more. But it was nice to separate and breathe a little bit.”

Not surprising considering the Tigers — and many of their fans — held their breath as they went 7-17 in September. After they finally got in, Skubal set the tone with a dominant 2-1 victory in Game 1.

When it was over and the plastic on the clubhouse carpet was slick and puddled, it was Skubal again setting the tone. How hard was it to rebound from the late swoon, against the team that tormented them?

“We respect them, but they sent us home last year and it feels good to be able to return the favor,” he said with a shrug, champagne goggles perched atop his head. “Once the season ended, I think we forgot. I don’t care how you got there, I don’t care if you won 120 games, I don’t care if you won 84 games. We’re all in the same spot. We’re one of the best teams in the big leagues, I don’t think anything else matters.”

At the end of another sticky celebration, all that mattered was the path to the next one. On to Seattle, where there will be more droughts, more drama, more tension, more tests. The task will be daunting against a slugging power, and all we know is what we keep seeing. The Tigers will be there, and it’ll likely be closer and crazier than anyone expects.

©2025 The Detroit News. Visit detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.