Matchup strategy hits snag in G4, forcing Tigers into Game 5

DETROIT -- The Tigers mixed and matched and got to the matchups they wanted, and the matchup that the data suggested. They just didn’t get the result.

“It wasn't lack of conviction or anything like that. Just didn't execute it,” Beau Brieske said of David Fry’s go-ahead home run in a 5-4 loss to the Guardians on Thursday night at Comerica Park to even the AL Division Series at 2-2, “and he put a great swing on the ball.”

Now, after all the pitching chaos and pinch-hitters, the Tigers will rest their postseason on the ultimate matchup: Tarik Skubal in a winner-take-all Game 5.

“It’s always comforting to have Tarik Skubal on the mound,” said A.J. Hinch, who could have to contemplate a lineup without Kerry Carpenter after he exited the game with a left hamstring injury after scoring a go-ahead run in the sixth inning.

The Tigers were within seven outs of their first ALCS berth since 2013 when their mixing and matching of relief arms finally hit a snag -- or more precisely, Fry’s bat. After openers, bulk pitchers and pinch-hitters early in Game 4, Hinch and Guardians manager Stephen Vogt played a waiting game. While Hinch stuck with starter Reese Olson for four innings of one-run ball, Vogt held off on his right-handed pinch-hitters when lefty Tyler Holton followed with two innings of relief.

Once Wenceel Pérez’s pinch-hit RBI single in the sixth gave Detroit its first lead of the game, the chess match began. Hinch followed Holton with another lefty, Sean Guenther. He got through two hitters at the bottom of the Cleveland order, but Steven Kwan’s two-out single brought up lefty slugger Kyle Manzardo’s spot.

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Fry hit for Manzardo, and Hinch countered with Brieske, who had struck out Fry on a slider in Game 3 on Wednesday and got a called third strike on Fry to close out Game 2 on Monday.

“David has been very good versus right-handed pitching,” Vogt said, “and Beau Brieske has pitched really well against us all year.

“And for us in that moment, we wanted to get the right-on-right matchup, and David Fry is one of the best baseball players in this league.”

Add in a strikeout in their lone regular-season meeting on July 29, and Fry was 0-for-3 with three strikeouts off Brieske. After Brieske put Fry in an 0-2 count, he seemed poised for the same fate.

Brieske tried sneaking a 97 mph fastball on the outside corner, but Fry fouled it off. He tried to get Fry to chase off the plate but couldn’t, not with the 98 mph fastball off the outside corner nor the “turbo slider” that drove off the plate and past catcher Jake Rogers for a wild pitch moving Kwan to second.

“Really just tried to find the putaway pitch,” Brieske said. “I feel like [I made] one mistake and he was ready for it and geared up for that.”

That mistake was the fastball, or more precisely the location.

“I missed in a spot that is his honey hole,” he said. “We were trying to get it up and away and pulled it down. He was just geared up for that and got to it.

“I feel like I was on the attack. I feel like it was a convicted pitch that just missed. He was ready for it and put by all accounts the biggest swing of the game on that pitch.”

Sometimes the player defies the matchup.

“These are elite players at the highest level that you can play, and so it's a competition,” Hinch said. “And it's incredible to watch these guys continue to fight. You make a small mistake or a hittable pitch. We were a couple pitches away from getting him to pop up, it barely gets into the stands and he stays on a fastball and drives it out of the ballpark.

“That's just one of a ton of at-bats back and forth that were incredibly competitive.”

Fry beat the matchup again in the ninth inning with a safety squeeze off Will Vest, scoring Brayan Rocchio for an insurance run that became the difference once Justyn-Henry Malloy doubled and scored off Emmanuel Clase in the bottom of the frame.

Had the Tigers lost Game 3 and won Game 4, they’d be talking about momentum. But as Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland often preached, momentum is only as good as the next game’s starting pitcher.

“Expect nothing less from these two teams, playing for the chance to advance,” Hinch said. “It's exactly how the games have gone the entire season against these guys. They put up a really good fight, got some big swings, some big pitches. We did the same, and now it ends in a Game 5.”