Through four innings Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers looked dead in the water.
Instead, they’ve forced a Game 5 against the Seattle Mariners with an explosive, 9-3 Game 4 win.
Seattle entered the game with a 2-1 series advantage and took a 3-0 lead through four innings with a chance to close the series out. A lifeless Detroit home crowd, meanwhile was nowhere to be found.
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Everything changed in the fifth. The Tigers chased Mariners starter Bryce Miller with a Dillon Dingler RBI double to plate their first run. Pinch hitter Jahmai Jones scored Dingler with an RBI double. And Javy Báez brought the crowd back to life with a base hit to score Jones and tie the game at 3-3.
From there, it was all Tigers, thanks largely to a sixth-inning outburst.
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Riley Greene led off the sixth with a home run for a 4-3 advantage and Detroit’s first lead in the series since winning Game 1.
Zach McKinstry added an RBI single. And Báez blew the game open with a two-run home run to flip Seattle’s closeout aspirations into a Detroit runaway.
The Mariners never recovered.
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The Tigers went on tack on a pair of insurance runs. And Detroit’s bullpen shut Seattle’s offense down for the rest of the game.
When the game was done, once-dormant Detroit bats had tagged Seattle pitching for 13 hits and three home runs. Gleyber Torres joined Greene and Báez in the home run column with a solo shot in the seventh.
And the Tigers have tied the series at 2-2 to force a decisive Game 5 after their season was very much on the brink. The series will shift back to Seattle on Friday (4:40 p.m. ET, FS1), where the winner will claim a berth in the ALCS.
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