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The Tigers have their backs to the wall and wouldn’t have it any other way

The Tigers have their backs to the wall and wouldn’t have it any other way

DETROIT – Kerry Carpenter walked toward the shower Thursday night with a slight limp. He wore dark blue shorts and a black sleeve that covered his left leg.

For a moment, the Detroit Tigers designated hitter was spinning around third, heading toward the go-ahead run in a spirited October situation.

The next moment, Carpenter grimaced and hobbled toward the plate. He jumped off the field after the goal. He injured his left thigh muscle and his condition is unclear.

“Any time a player like him has to leave the game it’s concerning,” said manager AJ Hinch, “but I won’t worry about it until the doctors give me an update and he’s had imaging and everything “We need to do it before Saturday.”

A half-inning after Carpenter’s worrisome injury, the Tigers still had a one-run lead and appeared to be on their way to victory in Game 4 of their American League Division Series. Then everything changed in the top of the seventh when David Fry hit a two-out, two-strikeout, two-run pinch-hit home run to give the Cleveland Guardians the lead. The Tigers then lost 5-4 and ended this series in the decisive fifth game on Saturday in Cleveland.

Carpenter, the Game 2 hero and the team’s most fearsome left-handed hitter, dressed at his locker but was unavailable to reporters after the game.

On the other side of the room, Beau Brieske got the pitch moving again, putting the Tigers’ backs against the wall once again. The right-handed reliever who has come through in so many big situations, the 27th-round pick who boosted his fastball to triple digits, who reworked his slider and used his deadly changeup to help the Tigers this far, came in with Fry 0 in the lead -2. One hit away from the Tigers taking the lead in the eighth, Fry fouled off a fastball and then hit two pitches to bring the score to 2-2.

“I’m just trying to find the field that’s been cleared away,” Brieske said.

The discarded board should go up and down. Brieske ripped the ball down and over the middle.

“I missed a spot that is his honey hole,” Brieske said.

There were 303 throws thrown in Thursday’s game, but that single one was the biggest moment in a tumultuous game that saw the Tigers suffer another non-holiday loss after knocking on the door of the ALCS. In the clubhouse after the game, first baseman Spencer Torkelson dismissed the idea of ​​a shock as the shock eluded him. The Tigers and Guardians know each other well. They fought hard against each other all year long. The Tigers speak of their opponents with respect for the competition and not with ill-will.

“They know they’re not just going to give up,” Torkelson said. “That would have been their last game. They won’t give up and keep going.”

That’s the nature of baseball this time of year. The Tigers had their usual big swings from random spots: an opposite-field home run by Zach McKinstry, the pinch-hit miscue by Wenceel Pérez that scored Carpenter. Hinch pulled off another masterclass, staying ahead of his Cleveland colleague Stephen Vogt for most of the evening.

But when you lose in October, the game’s turning points are still painful. Should the Tigers have thrown in front of José Ramírez in the third? Probably. Was Jackson Jobe the right man to move the eighth into the ninth when the Guardians started another run through a safety squeeze? Hard to say. Would things be different if Brieske had found the fastball in the distance?

“That’s definitely the beauty of this game,” Brieske said. “It’s nice when things go well for you, but it’s hard to bear when you’re on the losing side.”

Now the Tigers turn their attention to Game 5. They could lose one of their best players in Carpenter. Catcher Jake Rogers was hit before his final at-bat and then walked around the clubhouse with a bandage on his hand. The good news is that the Tigers have ace Tarik Skubal on the mound. And player after player brought up a familiar theme after a potentially crushing loss in Game 4.

“You could almost say that we played elimination games the entire second half of the season,” said Brieske. “If we didn’t play well, we knew we wouldn’t have a chance to get to this point.”

It was these Tigers who earned 33 wins in 44 games to recover from the brink and reach the postseason. It’s these Tigers who have achieved so many miraculous victories – stolen home runs and last-minute grand slams, harrowing plays at the plate and mesmerizing pitches at the most meaningful moments – just to be in this position.

So perhaps it’s fitting that their season boils down to this. Win or go home. Adversity in full effect. The best pitcher in baseball on the mound.

“It’s been one intense game after another over the last month or two,” Matt Vierling said. “Every win counts, and the situation is the same here.”

(Photo by Kerry Carpenter: Junfu Han / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)