Sports
Tigers rally in ninth again to top Dodgers, take series
Detroit — The atmosphere inside the Tigers’ clubhouse at Target Field on the Fourth of July was funereal. No music. No conversation. Just a bunch of beat up-looking ballplayers trying to regroup after losing five of the first seven games on a road trip that had one more city and three more games remaining.
At a season-worst nine games under .500, the only thing missing in that room was a trumpeter blowing Taps.
Stash the trumpet.
Since that day, the Tigers swept the Reds in Cincinnati, took three of four from American League Central Division-leading Cleveland and, after a second straight rousing ninth-inning rally, won two of three from the National League West-leading Dodgers.
Down 3-2 in the ninth Sunday, Zach McKinstry led off with a triple against right-hander Yohan Ramirez. Justyn-Henry Malloy singled in the tying run and then Ramirez misplayed two bunts. One by Ryan Vilade and the next on Wenceel Perez, allowing Malloy to score the winner — 4-3 Tigers.
BOX SCORE: Tigers 4, Dodgers 3
The Tigers (47-50) are trending in a positive direction heading into the All-Star break.
“Just really proud of the way these guys have just battled the last week going into the break to get us some momentum,” said veteran Mark Canha, who has battled a sore hip and wrist this last week. “I had a front-row seat to it, unfortunately, in the worst way. But it’s been awesome to watch this team rally and do what they’ve done.”
These last two games have been emblematic of both the inconsistency and resiliency the Tigers showed in the first half. Especially Saturday when they were down by five runs and seemingly dead in the ninth inning and came all the way back to post their 19th come-from-behind win.
On Sunday, they got out of the gate sluggish and fell into a 3-0 hole before their first at-bat.
Both teams deployed a bullpen game, and Tigers’ opener Beau Brieske got the first two outs in seven pitches.
By the time the inning ended, he threw 27 pitches and there were three runs on his ledger.
His trouble started when Perez, the right fielder, misplayed a bloop in short right field off the bat of right-handed hitter Will Smith. Perez seemed to misread the ball off the bat initially and then the wind kept blowing it back toward the infield.
It hit off the inside of his wrist, above his glove, and was scored a double.
Teoscar Hernandez ripped a 2-2 changeup from Brieske for a legit RBI double and scored on a single by Andy Pages.
Miguel Rojas rolled an infield single and Pages got to third after the shortstop McKinstry’s throw eluded first baseman Andy Ibanez. Rojas broke for second and Pages ended up scoring from third while the Tigers were in the process of tagging out Rojas in a rundown.
But things settled quickly. Lefty Tyler Holton pitched two scoreless innings, and then veteran righty Kenta Maeda, sent to the bullpen earlier this week, kept the Dodgers off the board through the seventh.
Maeda looked like a completely different pitcher than the one who’d been tagged for 15 runs in his last two starts. His velocity was up on all of his pitches (2.3 mph on his splitter and 2.6 mph on his four-seam fastball). The movement on all his pitches was crisper.
He allowed only an infield hit to Shohei Ohtani and struck out five in 3.2 innings. He left to a warm reception from the crowd of 35,159 at Comerica Park.
Andrew Chafin finished off the seventh, Jason Foley finished the eighth and Alex Faedo finished the ninth. Faedo, after Foley walked two Dodgers in the ninth, walked Gavin Lux to load the bases and then fell behind Chris Taylor 3-0.
He rallied and punched him out with a 3-2 fastball.
And the Tigers, meanwhile, chipped away. Urshela’s sacrifice fly in the fourth scored Colt Keith, who singled and advanced to third on a double by Matt Vierling.
In the sixth, a ground out by McKinstry plated Riley Greene who had walked and advanced on a single by Carson Kelly and a fly out to right by Urshela.
The Tigers were in position, for the second straight day, to steal a game.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
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