St. Louis – Alex Lange turned toward the Tigers’ dugout after he punched out Dylan Carlson to end the Tigers’ tightrope walk of a 5-4 win over the reeling St. Louis Cardinals and shouted, “Huh?!” at the top of his lungs. As if to say, “How about that, huh?!”
How about that, indeed.
The Tigers have won four straight. They are also in second place in the American Central Division – which means nothing on May 6 but means a heck of a lot considering where this team was just a few weeks ago.
“It just shows we’re starting to get a lot of confidence in ourselves,” said St. Louis native Matt Vierling. “We played a lot of good teams last month. We just have to keep it going. We feel pretty good right now, lot of momentum.
“And I don’t even think we’re close to what we could be.”
They certainly are battle tested. Of the 33 games they’ve played, 17 have been decided by two runs or less. And the Tigers are 11-6 in those games.
“We used a lot of resources for that one-run win and it was worth it,” said manager AJ Hinch. “Guys were fired up about it. It was a good game.”
That’s an understatement. So many players stepped up in big moments. Let’s start at the end with Lange.
Not officially named the closer yet, but Hinch called on him to save a game for the third straight day. His task Friday at Busch Stadium was to protect a one-run lead against the heart of the Cardinals’ order.
And that task took on a much higher degree of difficulty after Paul Goldschmidt led off the inning with a double.
“Just hung the crap out of breaking ball,” Lange said. “But we still had a one-run lead, still had to get three outs. Just keep tapping.”
Tap – He struck out Willson Contreras, freezing him with a 97-mph sinker after showing him five curveballs in a seven-pitch battle.
Tap – He struck out Nolan Arenado, another seven-pitch fight, this time getting him to chase his curveball with the count even 2-2.
Tap – He struck out Carlson, again chasing a curveball in the dirt.
“It’s just awesome,” said Lange, who has six saves. “It’s something I dreamed about as a kid. I studied closers. I studied relievers. It’s always been something I’ve been interested in. It’s the fun part of the game. Everything is on the line. The fans are into it.
“It matters to people. You saw how much it mattered to them.”
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol and bench coach Joe McEwing were both ejected after Arenado’s at-bat. They were barking at home plate umpire Junior Valentine after two questionable strike calls early in the at-bat.
“It matters to me and it matters to the guys in this locker room,” said Lange, finishing his thought. “You go out there and do whatever you’ve got to do to win the ballgame.”
The Cardinals have now lost seven in a row. They have just 10 wins on the season and have lost 11 straight series-opening games, the most since the Kansas City Royals lost 13 straight series openers in 1981.
This is uncharted waters for them and Hinch warned his players they would be going up against a wounded animal.
“Don’t let their record fool you,” he said. “This is a really good baseball team with really good set of players who are not only recognizable, but they’re really talented. We want to get in and out of town before they get going.”
Hinch wanted to try to take the fight out of the Cardinals early. He started nine right-handed hitters against lefty starter Jordan Montgomery. He did so at the expense of his defense, especially in the outfield where he started Andy Ibanez in right field, a position he’d never played in a professional game at any level.
That bit him a little bit when Ibanez misplayed a popup in shallow right that helped trigger a two-run fourth inning against Tigers’ starter Matthew Boyd, who still produced a quality start (three runs allowed in six innings).
“That was more on us as a coaching staff because everybody was out of position,” Hinch said. “But we overcame it.”
That strategy, though, also got Ibanez three at-bats against Montgomery. He doubled and scored in the first inning on Javier Baez’s third homer in four games. Then in the fifth inning, suspecting that Montgomery wouldn’t pitch beyond the sixth (he didn’t), Hinch subbed in left-handed hitting Riley Greene.
Big payoff on that move.
Greene came to the plate against right-handed reliever Jordan Hicks with two on in the seventh inning and the Tigers trailing 3-2. Big moment, clutch at-bat. Greene fell into an 0-2 hole, beaten by two straight 102-mph fastballs.
“My goal was to stay on the fastball,” Greene said. “I was just trying to hit the fastball the other way but I was super late on it.”
For whatever reason, Hicks decided to throw an off-speed pitch 0-2. He threw Greene a sweeper.
“I was still sitting fastball,” Greene said. “But I saw it pop out of his hand. I saw the off-speed pop above my eyes and I just went.”
Greene laced the pitch into the corner scoring both runs. Spencer Torkelson capped the three-run seventh with a two-out double off reliever Giovanny Gallegos.
“It was a calculated idea,” Hinch said of his plan and guessing when Montgomery might depart. “But we got three really good at-bats from Ibanez against the lefty and Riley got the big hit in the seventh against their bullpen.”
There was a lot of drama still left in this one.
First right-hander Jason Foley got out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh, getting Contreras to roll one back to him. But in the eighth, Foley needed rescuing.
He induced a double-play grounder from Carlson, but then couldn’t get another out. Juan Yepez and Paul DeJong singled, which set up the biggest break of the night for the Tigers.
Lars Nootbar, on a 3-2 pitch with both runners moving, ripped a ball into the right-field gap. It would have easily scored both runners, but the ball bounced over the wall − ground rule double.
“Me and Matt (Vierling) were like, ‘Thank God that ball went over the fence,” Greene said. “If it doesn’t, it’s a tie game. Crazy the things that can happen in baseball.”
DeJong had to go back to third.
“I loved it,” Hinch said. “It landed in the perfect place, just hard enough to get the ball over. Sometimes you’ve got to be fortunate in this game.”
DeJong ended up stranded at third, thanks to some big-boy work by the least experienced pitcher in the Tigers’ bullpen.
“I get goosebumps thinking about it,” Lange said of rookie Mason Englert, a Rule 5 draftee who until this season barely pitched above High-A ball. “He’s learned a lot on and off the field. I’m excited to watch him grow. He’s elite, man.”One run game, runners at second and third, eighth inning, hostile environment — this was by far the biggest pressure-cooker Englert has been in. But you’d never know it.
First he battled pinch-hitter Brendan Donovan for 11 pitches. Donovan fouled off five 3-2 pitches before he drew a walk to load the bases. The Cardinals sent up another pinch-hitter, lefty Nolan Gorman. Again the count went full. No open base this time.
No worries. Englert punched out Gorman with a nasty slider.
“Englert just continues to be unfazed by the moment,” Hinch said. “The inning was building for them. They’re sending up pinch-hitters, firing different guys up there. He’s never pitched in that environment and he comes up with a big strikeout after probably the longest at-bat he’s ever had before that (the walk).”
Like Lange said, goosebumps.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky