By DAVE HOGG The Associated Press
DETROIT — Riley Greene and Javier Báez homered in a four-run sixth inning and the Detroit Tigers kept their season alive with a 9-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday in Game 4 of the American League Division Series.
The Tigers forced a winner-take-all Game 5 by winning at Comerica Park for the first time in more than a month. They went 0-8 after Tarik Skubal’s 6-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 6, including Seattle’s 8-4 win on Tuesday.
The decisive game of the series will be Friday in Seattle, with Skubal facing George Kirby.
“One of the easiest and most exciting things I get to do is hand the ball to the best pitcher in baseball,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We’re getting on a plane across the country with a lot of optimism because of Tarik Skubal.”
The Tigers’ nine runs are their most in a postseason game since scoring 13 in Game 6 of the 1968 World Series.
After Detroit tied the score with three runs in the fifth, Greene gave the Tigers a 4-3 advantage with a leadoff homer off Gabe Speier in the sixth. The 454-foot homer was the second-longest home run of Greene’s career, regular season and postseason, and longest at Comerica Park since a 453-foot shot by Gleyber Torres on Aug. 29, 2023.
“That felt great,” Greene said of his first postseason homer. “I hadn’t hit a ball like that in a while.”
Spencer Torkelson followed with a double and scored Detroit’s fifth run on Zach McKinstry’s single before Báez made it 7-3 with his sixth postseason homer.
Gleyber Torres became the third Tigers All-Star to homer when he led off the seventh with a shot to right before Báez’s eighth-inning groundout brought in Detroit’s ninth run.
“They were able to get to our bullpen today, but those guys have bounced back all season,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “There’s no better place to do that than back at home on Friday.”
Troy Melton, Detroit’s Game 1 starter, picked up the win with three scoreless innings of relief.
The first 4½ innings looked like another Tigers disaster.
Casey Mize allowed one run while striking out six batters in the first three innings, but he needed 54 pitches to do it. That might have played a part in A.J. Hinch’s decision to send lefty Tyler Holton to the mound for the fourth inning.
The decision didn’t work – Holton faced three batters and left with the bases loaded and no one out. Hinch brought in set-up man Kyle Finnegan, who got Victor Robles to ground into a run-scoring double play before J.P. Crawford popped out.
The Mariners, though, got to Finnegan in the fifth. Randy Arozarena led off with a single, took second on a wild pitch and scored on Cal Raleigh’s single – his seventh hit of the series. That made it 3-0, increasing the booing from an angry home crowd.
“I’ve heard boos my whole career, so I don’t mind them,” Báez said. “That’s just showing the passion of our fans.”
Dillon Dingler’s RBI double got the Tigers on the board with one out in the fifth – the first run Detroit had scored against Mariners starter Bryce Miller in 23⅓ innings.
Speier came in, but Jahmai Jones lined his first pitch down the left-field line for a pinch-hit double to make it 3-2 before Báez tied the game with a base hit.