The Detroit Tigers seized one of the American League’s three wild-card playoff spots with a 4–3 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday.
Kerry Carpenter hit two home runs and Spencer Torkelson added another to provide the majority of offense for Detroit. The Tigers ran out to a 3–0 lead, but the Orioles tied the game in the fifth inning on a two-run homer by Cedric Mullins and an RBI double from Jordan Westburg.
The second of Carpenter’s two home runs gave Detroit a 4–3 lead in the sixth and three Tigers relievers – Brenan Hanifee, Will Vest and Jason Foley – pitched three scoreless, hitless innings to hold that lead through the end.
Foley got the save in the box score, but the Tigers’ win may have been truly saved by center fielder Parker Meadows, who made a leaping catch at the fence to rob Colton Cowser of a two-run homer to end the fifth inning.
Meadows’ leaping theft was the second such catch that the rookie has made this season, joining a grab he made in early August that swiped a home run away from the Seattle Mariners‘ Cal Raleigh. The rookie made another great catch on Saturday, taking an extra-base hit away from Mullins with a diving catch toward the warning track in left center field.
Detroit made a leap in the wild-card standings after the Minnesota Twins lost 8–1 to the Boston Red Sox. And with the Kansas City Royals losing 2–0 to the San Francisco Giants, the Tigers also tied for the AL’s No. 2 wild-card spot.
However, the Twins have one more game on Sunday to make up for Saturday’s game being postponed by rain. If Minnesota wins, there will be a three-way tie at 82–74. The Tigers would lose the tiebreaker to both the Twins and Royals based on head-to-head matchups (going 6–7 against both teams) this season.
The Tigers have been on an improbable run to postseason contention in the second half of the season. On Aug. 10, Detroit was 55–63 and 10 games away from the third wild-card spot. But they went 14–5 for the rest of the month and have gone 13–6 in September to make a significant jump in the standings.
Detroit begins a season-ending, six-game homestand on Monday with three games against the Tampa Bay Rays (58–58) and three versus the Chicago White Sox (28–91).
