San Diego — Sure, that’s coach-speak. It’s a cliché. And then it happens. It happens again and again. And suddenly what you might consider to be just words seems more like deeply ingrained behavior.
Play all 27 outs.
“You look at the way this team plays and we’re going to play all 27 outs and more if we have to,” manager AJ Hinch said after the Tigers’ 32nd and most dramatic comeback win of the season on Thursday. “It’s not always pretty. It’s not always perfect. But there’s a lot of fighting spirit and a desire to be good in this group.”
The Tigers, who had already lost the first two games of this series, were trailing 3-0 and had to throw their final strike against All-Star closer Robert Suarez at the start of the ninth inning.
The bases were loaded and Suarez had just struck out Kerry Carpenter for the second out by pumping three consecutive 100+ mph fastballs right past him. Parker Meadows was next and he missed the count.
“I played against him last night and I know he’s in a good mood,” Meadows said. “I’ve hit hard in the at-bat a few times before and tried to take it easy and not try too hard.”
Meadows caught a 3-2, 101 mph fastball from Suarez and fired it over the left-field wall. The grand slam home run gave the Tigers a 4-3 victory over the San Diego Padres and silenced and amazed another sellout crowd (40,221) at Petco Park.
“Just a really cool moment,” Meadows said. “It’s momentum for the next series. You can never write us off. You’ve seen that all year and we were able to do it again tonight. It’s pretty fun.”
Suarez, playing his third consecutive game, was not as good as he had been in the first two games, allowing a leadoff single to Justyn-Henry Malloy and walking pinch hitters Jace Jung and Colt Keith to load the bases.
“Parker’s at-bat was set up from the beginning by really good at-bats,” Hinch said. “A lot had to happen for that to happen. And Parker hits a ball into the opponent’s half and hits a four-run home run. That’s just as cool a moment for him as it is for us. Unbelievable win.”
RESULT: Tigers 4, Padres 3
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Right-hander Ricky Vanasco, who was called up to the team on Sept. 1, made his Tigers debut and earned his first major league win with a clean eighth inning. Left-hander Tyler Holton earned his seventh save in the ninth inning.
“Unfortunately, it only counts as one win,” joked Hinch. “It’s obviously important. We don’t want to come in here and get swept off the field. You want to win the series. If you can’t win the series, you have to salvage a game. Tonight we could only win one game out of three and we did that.”
The Tigers (71-70) are tied with the Seattle Mariners, both teams are 5.5 games behind the Royals in the battle for the last wildcard spot.
“We can compete with any team,” Meadows said. “We all believe that in the clubhouse. You can never underestimate us.”
Things weren’t looking good. For the second time this season, the Tigers were slowed down by experienced left-hander Martin Perez.
On April 9, pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Perez limited the Tigers to one run in eight innings. He caused 11 ground ball outs that day at PNC Park.
On Thursday, he got the Tigers back to hitting balls in the dirt, getting seven groundball outs in the first four innings. He allowed three singles and struck out 13 batters in a row in the first six innings before Jake Rogers and Spencer Torkelson hit back-to-back singles in the seventh inning to end the night.
In the first two games, the Tigers managed two runs in 10.1 innings against the Padres bullpen.
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Right-hander Jason Adam cleaned up Perez’s mess in the seventh inning by striking out left-hander Keith (ground out) and pinch hitter Carpenter (strikeout).
Left-hander Tanner Scott did not pitch a single in the eighth inning, his third consecutive scoreless inning in the series. And for the third time in the series, they faced closer Suarez.
All good things come in threes.
“You just want to try to always have good at-bats,” Hinch said. “We didn’t do that early on. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do it later.”
Speaking of fighting to the end, it looked like it might be a short night for right-hander Casey Mize. It was his second start since coming off the injured list, and the Padres didn’t let him get comfortable.
The first batter he faced, Luis Arraez, hit a single to left. He was knocked out on a double play, but Mize let a 96-mph four-seam fastball high and over the middle of the plate to Jurickson Profar. The ball left Profar’s bat with an exit velocity of 106 mph and flew 411 feet into the right-field seats.
He hit a slider to Xander Bogaerts in the second inning, which ended in a two-run homer in left field.
“I made a mistake with Profar. The ball was supposed to go down and away, but it went up and in,” Mize said. “And with Bogaerts, one of the things we talked about was that we can’t leave the spin in the zone. So of course I do that.”
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There was a barrage of hard-hit balls against Mize to start. In the first four innings, eight balls were hit at 100 mph or more, the hardest being a 112 mph ground out by Manny Machado.
But despite all the hard contact (average exit velocity of 97 mph on 19 balls in play), Mize was able to limit the damage to those three runs.
“At that point (after the home runs), I just sit back and tell myself I have to hold it there as long as possible,” he said. “I’m glad I was able to do that. It saved the outing a little bit. But I’d rather not be in those situations.”
The Padres hitters had good swings with his four-seamer and two-seamer (both averaging 95 mph), but as the game went on he effectively mixed splitters and knuckle curveballs.
“Casey doesn’t let it get him down,” Hinch said. “He gets angry. He gets frustrated. But he’s continued to get us the outs. When he implodes, when he sulks, when he blows the ball or gets frustrated for selfish reasons, this game is totally different. That’s an important lesson for our young pitchers to just keep fighting.”
This lesson is now ingrained in the Tigers’ DNA.
“We’re just staying in the fight,” said Mize, who was in the weight room when Meadows’ ball left the yard in the ninth inning. “What a big moment. I’m happy for Parker. This is a big moment for our team.”
@cmccosky
