Carpenter's dramatic HR stuns Clase in 9th as 'never-quit' Tigers force ALDS tie

CLEVELAND -- As Kerry Carpenter stepped on home plate, his three-run homer off Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase having broken a scoreless deadlock in the ninth, the Tigers’ slugger pounded his chest and raised his arms to the sky. It was gratitude from a man of faith, but it was also raw emotion and theater from a Tigers team that has majored in drama for nearly two months.

“I don't know if I can describe it,” Carpenter said after the 3-0 win that evened the American League Division Series at a game apiece. “Yeah, I knew it was gone, and it was just an amazing feeling being able to come through for this team, because our pitchers are keeping us in these games like crazy.”

More than that, they’re keeping them in this series, which now turns into a golden opportunity. After silencing hostile crowds in Houston and Cleveland and winning three out of four between the two stops, the Tigers will take the series to Comerica Park for Detroit’s first postseason game in a decade, with games on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening.

Win both, and the Tigers will head to the AL Championship Series for the first time since 2013. Win one, and they’ll have Tarik Skubal -- author of 24 consecutive scoreless innings dating back to mid-September -- looming for a return to Cleveland with a winner-take-all Game 5 on Saturday.

When a Division Series under the current 2-2-1 format has been tied after two games, the team heading home for Games 3-4 has gone on to win the series 29 of 44 times (66%).

“We now have two games at our place,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “We know it's going to be electric. We know Detroit has waited a really long time for a playoff game. We're going to have a couple of them, and a chance to take control of this series.”

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Monday’s script fit what got the Tigers here. Skubal shut down the Guardians for seven innings, taking a scoreless game deep into the Cleveland evening and giving his teammates a chance to win it with one big swing. They were tantalizingly close earlier in the game and couldn’t get it, from ex-teammate Matthew Boyd’s big outs in the third and fourth to Steven Kwan’s diving catch to rob Wenceel Pérez of a go-ahead single in the eighth, getting just enough of his glove under the ball to withstand a replay review.

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It could’ve been a crushing blow. Instead, it was just a big hit delayed.

“That's what I like from this team: We never quit,” Pérez said. “If we don't get it in one inning, we're going to do it the next inning. That's part of the mindset that we have here, and it's been amazing.”

One big hit was still all they needed after Will Vest followed Skubal with a clean inning of relief, helped by Parker Meadows’ leaping catch to rob Kyle Manzardo of extra bases at the left-field wall.

They got the big hit in the ninth against baseball’s most dominant closer.

“I’ve said it all year: If Rog can do it in the eight/nine-hole, anybody can,” said Jake Rogers, whose two-out bouncer through the left side kept the ninth inning alive before Trey Sweeney’s gapper brought up Carpenter.

“I don't know what it is about us, but we love scoring in the eighth or the ninth.”

Carpenter stepped to the plate with the Tigers holding a 50.1 percent chance to win, according to Statcast. Anyone would be excused for feeling less than 50-50, given Clase.

Like Andy Ibáñez before his go-ahead three-run double off Josh Hader in Houston to end the Wild Card Series on Wednesday, Carpenter began the game on the bench. He pinch-hit in the eighth against Hunter Gaddis and hit a towering pop fly behind the plate for an out. He was waiting for another shot.

“I wanted a chance,” Carpenter said, “and those guys put together great swings, because there's probably not too many innings this year that Clase gave up two hits in one inning, let alone three.”

Carpenter fouled off a 2-0 cutter at 100.6 mph. He saw three consecutive sliders from there -- whiffing on one for strike two, fouling off another to extend the bat and then getting one over the plate.

“I wasn't sitting on it,” Carpenter said, “but I was just on time for his hardest pitch, that cutter, and I was zoning in for it to start in a certain zone. My instincts took over, and he missed a spot, so I took advantage of it.”

The towering fly into the right-field seats was the Tigers’ first go-ahead home run in the ninth inning or later in a postseason game since Magglio Ordonez sent the 2006 Tigers to the World Series with his walk-off homer against Oakland.

“That was an incredible at-bat,” Rogers said. “I knew that if [Carpenter] just got something down over the middle of the plate, he was going to hit it hard. He just looked comfortable off the first pitch, and he battled off a couple of pitches and it paid off.

“I had an incredible view of it. When he hit it, I was probably screaming at the top of my lungs jumping down the third-base line. It was fun, man. And that's all Kerry. He's done that for us all year.”

“I was in the weight room kind of doing the post-throw stuff, and what a swing,” Skubal said. “I was on the ground, and I think that's the fastest I've ever stood up in my life.”

The only noise as Carpenter dashed around the bases was the roar of Tigers fans who had made the short drive. They’ll be thunderous come Wednesday. It’s Detroit’s reward for silencing crowds in Houston and Cleveland.

“Those fans are super loud, crazy, every pitch,” Matt Vierling said. “Us being able to push through that, I really think that's something we can lean on going forward.”