Baseball is fun. October baseball is fun. And when the Detroit Tigers play baseball in October, it’s the funnest kind of fun that there is.
Minute Maid Park in Houston was the site of all of that fun on Wednesday in a do-or-die game for the Astros
After using star pitcher Tarik Skubal on Tuesday, the Tigers turned to their “pitching chaos” strategy that worked so well to end the regular season. On the other hand, the Astros opted for a more conventional starting pitcher in Hunter Brown.
For both sides, their strategies worked, at least for a while. Tigers’ CF Parker Meadows broke the scoreless tie in the sixth with a solo home run in the sixth inning.
Fast forward to the seventh, where, after a combination of Tyler Holton, Brenan Hanifee, and Beau Brieske had shut out the Astros through six innings, rookie phenom Jackson Jobs was tasked with continuing the shutout. And for the first time in his young career, he struggled. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Jobs induced a hard-hit ground ball that a diving Spencer Torkelson was able to snag, but he fired the ball home from his stomach and Jake Rogers couldn’t dig out the low throw, leaving the score tied and the situation the same. Jobe then generated a medium-depth pop-up in foul territory that Matt Vierling caught for the first out. Being aggressive, the Astros were able to get the runner home on the sacrifice fly, as the runner just beat the throw from a seemingly surprised Vierling. Sean Guenther then took over for Jobe and was quickly able to generate an inning-ending double play.
The Tigers’ offense was able to quickly roar back, as the eighth inning saw Kerry Carpenter score on a wild pitch, and Vierling, Colt Keith, and Torkelson loaded the bases for pinch-hitting specialist Andy Ibanez. Josh Hader, fresh out of the bullpen, threw Ibanez fastball after fastball, which Ibanez continuously fouled off until he finally was able to squeeze one fair down the left-field line for a tide-turning three-run double.
Guenther and will vest slammed the door on Houston’s playoff run, and a kings of the jungle-sized celebration ensued. The Gritty Tigs are one step closer to immortality, and they don’t know how to quit.
