KANSAS CITY -- The Tigers flirted with danger all night, but the hottest team in baseball escaped jam after jam before Parker Meadows and Riley Greene came through in the 10th to charge a 3-1 victory in extra-innings over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.

Detroit has now won 24 of its past 34 games, and stayed 1 1/2 games behind Minnesota, who holds the head-to-head tiebreaker, for the third and final AL Wild Card spot.

But it wasn’t easy -- at all. Casey Mize went just 4 1/3 innings, allowing at least one baserunner in all five frames but battling to keep Detroit in the game against Royals starter Cole Ragans, who tossed seven frames of one-run ball.

Mize rolled double plays in both the third and fourth, while Meadows also played hero defensively with a spectacular sprinting catch in center field in the third that saved at least one run, if not two.

Mize was forced to exit in the fifth when he loaded the bases with just one out, but Shelby Miller came in and got Michael Massey to ground out to keep the game tied at 1. Then in the sixth, Miller had to work out of another bases-loaded jam, this time getting Tommy Pham to fly out to right field.

Detroit’s lone run in the first nine frames came immediately in the first inning after Andy Ibáñez reached on a hit-by-pitch before Matt Vierling drove him home on an RBI double to the left-center-field gap.

Beau Brieske pitched a scoreless seventh and Tyler Holton worked a clean eighth and ninth before Jason Foley earned the save with a scoreless 10th frame.