CINCINNATI -- Long before the Tigers walked out of Great American Ball Park late Sunday afternoon with a series win, capped by Sunday’s 4-1 victory, Akil Baddoo began the three-game set Friday with a groundout against Reds starter Vladimir Gutierrez. It was a routine grounder to shortstop Kyle Farmer, but Baddoo bolted down the line at 30.5 feet per second and made the play close enough that manager A.J. Hinch took notice.

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“We won a series against a team that's fighting for their life in the playoffs,” Hinch said Sunday. “And the first hitter of the entire series was Akil Baddoo hitting a routine ground ball to short, and he put pressure on them. I can't guarantee that that mattered, but that set an incredible tone for our team and certainly for our style of play.”

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Turned out, it wasn’t Detroit's style Friday night, not when backup catcher Dustin Garneau homered twice to pace a 15-run, five-homer onslaught. But on Sunday, when Reds starter Luis Castillo was his nastiest, it was the style that won the finale and the series.

That ability to score runs in different ways is a sign of a good team. It allows teams to stay in games against tough pitchers. It’s how the Tigers beat the Reds in a Castillo start for the third time in two years, this time with a piggyback start.

“I think we need to feel what it feels like to win in different ways,” said Casey Mize, whose three perfect innings only ended due to an innings limit. “There's going to be close ones like today where we pitch really well and play defense, got the timely hit. And then there's going to be games like a couple of days ago where we can really, really swing it and drive in tons of runs. So I think finding different ways to win is definitely going to be beneficial, not only for next season but for right now, for the rest of this month.”

The Reds are where the Tigers want to be. The Tigers are catching up quickly.

“These guys would homer every day if they could just draw it up and say, 'We're going to go up and hit four and five homers a game.' I mean, that's a fun brand of baseball,” Hinch said. “But you have to find other ways to do it against other style pitchers. It's not just a simple turnkey; this is our game plan and we go execute it. It takes some adjustments. It takes a mentality that really starts at the top.”

Castillo allowed just two walks and two singles over the first five innings. One was a third-inning liner from Baddoo after he ducked away from a fastball just under his armpit. He was erased on a Jonathan Schoop double play, but he wasn’t done.

Castillo had fanned four of his last seven batters and put Baddoo in an 0-2 count leading off the sixth. Baddoo chased a 98 mph fastball off the plate and got enough to poke it inside the left-field line, turning it into a double when he barely beat the throw to second. That extra base loomed large when Jonathan Schoop hit a soft liner to second two pitches later.

After a Joey Votto error put runners at the corners, Robbie Grossman stole second on a Castillo changeup. He not only removed the double-play option, he opened first base and potentially changed Castillo’s approach to Jeimer Candelario.

“He had an open base. He didn’t want to give up,” Candelario said.

Candelario saw four consecutive changeups. The last, a 3-1 pitch, was below the strike zone, but Candelario laced it down the right-field line. It would’ve been his 40th double of the season, but as Baddoo and Grossman scored, Candelario kept going. By taking third, he set up Eric Haase’s sacrifice fly, building a 3-0 lead.

“We’re always looking for the extra base,” Candelario said of his third triple of the year. “Everything we can to get close to home plate, we will do it.”

Two innings later, Baddoo turned a leadoff walk against Brad Brach into an insurance run. Baddoo was trying to steal second on an 0-2 pitch when Schoop hit a soft line drive into shallow center field. Baddoo kept going, rounding third so quickly that the throw home was cut off to throw out Schoop at second.

Once Gregory Soto finished a five-out save, the Tigers left Cincinnati feeling rewarded. Amidst a stretch of series against contenders, they looked like one themselves.