Baltimore – Manager AJ Hinch has done his best to keep the playoff race debate out of his locker room and away from his young players.
But trust me: he is in full playoff manager mode.
He used every advantage he could to put the Tigers in a position to win on Saturday, and despite giving up a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, they pulled out a 6-4 win in ten innings that silenced the boisterous crowd of 39,647 at Camden Yards.
“It was incredible,” he said. “What a game, from start to finish with all the back and forth. Just an incredible character victory.”
With the win, the Tigers (81-74) are now half a game behind the Twins and thus in the last wild card spot. The game between the Twins and the Red Sox was canceled on Saturday due to rain. This means that they are now only one game behind the Royals, who occupy the second wild card spot.
And not for nothing did it guarantee them their first undefeated season since 2016.
“Those are the games we live for,” said Riley Greene, who had three hits and threw out a runner at the plate. “Those are the games you want to be in every single day of the week. That’s a really good team there. It’s fun to play against them and just go out there and give it your all on the field.”
Miraculously, the Tigers managed to pull the game through to the 10th inning. Greene hit a free runner home with a single on the first pitch of the 10th inning. And after pinch hitter Jace Jung hit a double, he scored on a sacrifice fly by Zach McKinstry.
Right-hander Beau Brieske, who left the Orioles’ winning hit on third base with no outs in the ninth inning, got the last three outs in the tenth inning to secure the win.
“He’s a dog,” Greene said of Brieske. “We always have each other’s backs. He had our backs tonight.”
The Orioles had tied the game in the ninth inning against Jason Foley. Gunnar Henderson hit a two-run double and they still had runners on second and third base with no outs.
RESULT: Tigers 6, Orioles 4, 10 innings
Hinch had Brieske and left-hander Tyler Holton warm up. He chose Brieske even though Holton had been on the field longer.
“I was aware that Holton had seen this group at the top of their rankings yesterday and might see them again tomorrow,” Hinch said. “It’s about balancing our place in the rankings and showing these guys different looks.”
It was, as Reese Olson put it, a hopeless situation. But Brieske approached the matter like a soldier. Without fear.
“Honestly, I just didn’t care about the negative result,” he said. “I wasn’t scared. Your back is against the wall and you have to see what you’ve got. I didn’t go into it like I didn’t want to lose.”
“I just tried to do my best. I wasn’t afraid of messing it up. I couldn’t go into it with that attitude. I just told myself I had to go down fighting.”
He didn’t give an inch. He caught Cedric Mullins on a ground ball to second base and then shortstop Trey Sweeney caught a pop-up in shallow left field and the game was saved.
Sweeney caught the ball in the dead run, despite getting tangled up with Greene. The collision took his breath away, but he still had the presence of mind to get up and throw the ball into the infield. Rookie Jackson Holliday never left third base.
“The outfield was flat because we had to get that run at the plate,” Greene said. “The ball had to be caught. I was there. He was there. He caught it and I slid because we’ve learned to slide to avoid major damage. I definitely didn’t feel good and it definitely didn’t feel good for Sweeney. But we made the play.”
“I’m not sure if he heard me, but I didn’t care that he was down. At that moment I was just thinking, ‘Get up, get up, get up.’ It was a great play and I’m glad he made it.”
Brieske was too.
“That was the biggest out of the game,” he said. “If it goes down, it’s game over. But now you have two outs and it’s like, ‘Oh, all you have to do is make an out and it can be any out.'”
Brieske got Colton Cowser to make a flyout up the middle. The biggest save.
“It was almost like an out-of-body experience,” he said. “Just because the adrenaline was so high. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt it that strong. I just tried to channel it to the plate, one pitch at a time.”
Hinch, on the other hand, was in playoff mode from the start. Every player on his bench was used, as were five relievers.
“We try to take every advantage we can get in the matchups, and they have a really balanced bullpen,” Hinch said. “The guys on our bench know they’re going to come in at some point because they have four left-handers and four right-handers. We have a group that’s going to do whatever it takes to create a good situation.”
When Hinch started pushing the buttons in the eighth inning, the score was 2-2. The Tigers had left runners on base in the sixth and seventh innings, and they sent the first two batters out in the eighth inning against left-handed reliever Cionel Perez.
Matt Vierling and Greene both singled. That brought left-hander Kerry Carpenter into the field, and Hinch went to his bench and sent catcher Jake Rogers in as a pinch hitter.
A marginal move, but one that paid off. Rogers had a batting average of .169 with an OPS of .494 against left-handed pitchers; Carpenter .107, .408.
Advantage Rogers. He hit a hard ground ball (96 mph) to the right of Holliday at second base and was unable to make the backhand hit.
Vierling scored and Greene rushed to third base, dodging a strong throw from center fielder Mullins. Rogers, credited with an RBI single, scampered to second base after the throw to third.
Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde brought in right-hander Seranthony Dominguez as a counterpart to Spencer Torkelson.
Hinch countered with left-hander Colt Keith. It was the first time Hinch used a pinch hitter for Torkelson. Keith hit a sacrifice fly.
“Rogers has an incredible batting average, Colt has an incredible batting average,” Hinch said. “It’s not easy to take Carp out of the game or step in for Tork for the first time. But this group is as close to playoff baseball as it’s ever been, and you have to do everything you can to get a little edge if you can.”
Other key components for this victory:
▶Dillon Dingler, who was on a 2-for-38 streak, ripped a two-out, two-strike, two-run triple in the second inning to put the Tigers on the scoreboard first. He finished the game with two hits and an 11-pitch walk.
▶Olson, making his second start since returning from the injured list, finished his appearance with a strikeout in the third inning.
▶Greene saved a run with the best throw of his young career. He threw out Adley Rutschman at the plate as he tried to score from second base on a single by Heston Kjerstad. Greene’s throw to the plate reached 92.1 mph, the hardest throw of his career. It was his fourth outfield assist of the season.
▶ Left-hander Sean Guenther silenced the Orioles in the seventh and eighth innings, getting six outs in a row.
▶Centerfielder Parker Meadows robbed Mullins of extra bases in the first inning with a pike catch to right center. Statcast had a catch probability of 15%. Meadows covered 87 feet at 29.9 feet per second.
Whenever Hinch talks about how important everything is, he can forever cite this game as a pathetic example.
@cmccosky
