DETROIT — Riley Greene, Matt Vierling and Spencer Torkelson each drove in a run and six pitchers combined on a second straight shutout Wednesday to give the Detroit Tigers a 3-0 victory over the Cleveland Guardians in Game 3 of the American League Division Series.
Starter Keider Montero and relievers Brant Hurter (1-0), Beau Brieske, Sean Guenther, Will Vest and Tyler Holton limited the Guardians to six hits and two walks as the Tigers took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series.
Detroit — which has not allowed a run over the last 20 innings — moved one victory away from its first visit to the AL Championship Series since 2013. Game 4 is set for Thursday at Detroit.
Asked if felt Game 3 went according to his pregame plan, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said: “Absolutely not scripted because there’s just so much stuff that goes on, and from the very first part of it, Keider had no idea, first off, and responded favorably with an incredible first inning, with a ton of energy in the ballpark and in an atmosphere that was second to none.
“We’ve been doing this for a couple months. So our (relievers) respond favorably and did an incredible job of getting up, getting ready and getting their hitters out, almost perfectly, in terms of coming in situations and pounding the strike zone and doing their part to put pressure on them to continue innings.”
Greene gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead in the first inning with his two-out single up the middle that scored Parker Meadows from second base. Meadows, who opened the inning with a single to center, has hit safely in all five postseason games this year. He’s the first Tiger to record a hit in each of his first five career playoff games since Al Kaline in 1968.
Jake Rogers helped put Detroit ahead 2-0 in the third when he led off with a double down the left field line, moved to third on a groundout and scored on Vierling’s sacrifice fly to center.
Hurter, who came on in the second to replace Montero, gave up five hits in 3 1/3 innings, including back-to-back singles to Brayan Rocchio and Steven Kwan with one out in the fifth.
Brieske relieved Hurter and closed out the inning with a strikeout of David Fry and a flyout by Jose Ramirez.
“When you’re playing from behind, the other team has the opportunity to get you handcuffed,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “But you know, outside of maybe a couple of at-bats, I felt like we had the advantage in almost every situation today. We had traffic going. I thought we did a great job setting the table. We just weren’t able to come through with a big hit.”
Torkelson snapped an 0-for-14 postseason slump by blasting a double to the left field corner in the bottom of sixth off Eli Morgan, scoring Colt Keith from second and giving the Tigers a 3-0 lead.
“I said this before, like we’re all human,” Torkelson said. “So we can hear the noise. We know how close we are. But it just goes back to one pitch at a time, one out at a time. That’s been our approach since day one of spring training, just finding ways to win every single day, and things started to click a couple weeks ago, month ago, whatever it was.
“So that’s what’s worked. So if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Seven Guardians pitchers combined to allow five hits.
Alex Cobb (0-1), making his first start since Sept. 1, gave up three hits and two runs over three innings. He had been on the injured list with a blister on his right middle finger that ended his regular season.
Cobb was followed by Erik Sabrowski, Tim Herrin, Morgan, Cade Smith, Andrew Walters and Joey Cantillo. Those six relievers limited Detroit to one run on two hits over the final five innings.
“I thought Alex threw the ball well,” Vogt said. “They got a single up the middle in the first inning to score the run and after that, I thought he threw the ball really well. And, you know, I thought again, the scoreboard dictated that we needed to move away from him.”
The game drew 44,885 fans, setting a Comerica Park postseason attendance record.
With the shutout victory, the Tigers became the fourth team (fifth occurrence) to log consecutive shutouts within a single league division series and first to accomplish the feat in the American League Division Series. The other teams were the 2020 and 2021 Atlanta Braves, 2018 Milwaukee Brewers and 2018 Los Angeles Dodgers — and each advanced to the National League Championship Series.
–Bob Tripi, Field Level Media
