Why Tigers are playing home game in Oakland

KANSAS CITY -- The Tigers arrived at Kauffman Stadium on Thursday morning all packed for the next leg of their road trip in Oakland, where they’ll try to pick up a badly needed home win.

Wait, what?

Before the Tigers open their three-game series against the A’s on Friday night, they have a suspended game to complete. The game has been a bizarre asterisk in an already strange season for Detroit, but it’ll finally get a resolution. It’s an unusual setup, but it’s based on a late-inning lead change, a spring rainstorm that wouldn’t let up and a getaway day.

When rain halted the series finale between the Tigers and A’s at Comerica Park on May 19, Oakland had just taken a 5-3 lead in the top of the seventh on a Stephen Piscotty two-run double. As the bottom of the seventh began, the rain picked up and the umpires called for the tarp.

By rule, since the road team took the lead in the top of the inning, the home team must have a chance to answer in the bottom half. So even though they had completed six-plus innings, they couldn’t call it a completed game.

Since the suspended game happened on the final day of the series, it brought up another quirk. Had the game been rained out completely, the two teams would’ve found a common off-day to make up the game in Detroit. But that doesn’t apply when all they’re playing are the final 2 1/2 innings of a game. Since the two sides had this series in Oakland ahead, they tacked it onto there.

Thus, when the Tigers and A’s begin play at 8:15 p.m. ET on Friday, Detroit will be batting as the home team (no, the Tigers won’t have to wear their home jerseys with the Old English D) in the bottom of the seventh with a 5-3 deficit. The teams will play the game to its nine-inning conclusion, or extra innings if Detroit rallies to tie it.

“Very different,” said catcher Grayson Greiner, due up second when the game resumes. “I’ve never done it before. It’ll definitely be a new experience. Just treat it like a regular game, except you’re thrust right in the middle of it.”

And they’ll resume the game with mass substitutions. Four members of the Tigers' lineup from that game are no longer on the active roster. Josh Harrison, who had a 2-2 count against Liam Hendriks in the bottom of the seventh, was released last month. JaCoby Jones, due up third, is out for the season. Niko Goodrum, who would be due up if Detroit gets a baserunner, is also on the injured list.

The third hitter in the Tigers' lineup, Nick Castellanos, is now with the Cubs. All of those guys will be replaced by pinch-hitters or defensive substitutions.

The Tigers will also have a new pitcher for the eighth. Victor Alcántara, who came on to compete the bottom of the seventh, ended the season at Triple-A Toledo and wasn’t among Detroit's September callups. Four members of the Tigers’ current bullpen -- Gregory Soto, Buck Farmer, Daniel Stumpf and Zac Reininger -- won’t be available because they already pitched in the game.

“I've got copies of the lineup cards here,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “I don't know how we're going to hand them back to the umpires, but we're going to have to make a few changes. We've got some different people here, and we've got people that are out of the game already and can't come back into it. It's a little different, but we have a chance to win a game.”

Whatever the result, it’ll go down on the Tigers’ home record. Detroit needs four home wins to avoid becoming the first team in Major League history to lose 60 home games in a season, and four wins overall to avoid matching its 2003 record of 43-119, the American League mark for most losses in a season.