CLEVELAND — Kerry Carpenter’s three-run blast with two outs and two strikes in the top of the ninth inning vaulted the Detroit Tigers to a 3-0 victory in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Cleveland Guardians.
Carpenter’s home run — the first three-run homer Clase has ever allowed as a big-leaguer — erased a scoreless tie and silenced a raucous sellout crowd at Progressive Field as the Tigers tied the series at one game apiece.
The wild fate that led teacher and student to the same mound on an October afternoon resulted in a classic playoff pitcher’s duel. Matthew Boyd logged 4 2/3 scoreless innings for the Guardians. Tarik Skubal, the presumptive AL Cy Young Award winner, kept Cleveland at bay for seven frames.
Skubal retired the first 13 batters he faced before Josh Naylor socked a double to the right-center gap in the fifth. Skubal then hit Jhonkensy Noel with a pitch, but Andrés Giménez grounded into a double play to end the threat. A David Fry double play ended another Cleveland scoring chance in the sixth.
Skubal struck out eight, didn’t walk a batter and even made José Ramírez look overmatched at times.
But the Tigers couldn’t answer — until the ninth, when Clase, himself a candidate to be a Cy Young Award finalist, left a 94 mph slider over the middle of the plate. As the baseball disappeared into the right-field seats, Carpenter rounded first base, shouted and raised his arms in celebration, resulting in his helmet falling to the dirt.
The series shifts to Comerica Park for Game 3 on Wednesday.
Kerry Carpenter’s blast will go down in Tigers lore
The Tigers have had so many unlikely heroes over the past seven weeks. The story was no different Monday, when a 19th-round pick who was working at Dick’s Sporting Goods during the COVID-19 pandemic launched one of the biggest home runs in the recent memory of a storied franchise. Kerry Carpenter’s 2-2 shot off elite closer Emmanuel Clase gave the Tigers a breakthrough they had spent the first 17 innings of this series searching for. Before Carpenter’s three-run homer — which would not have been possible without two-out singles from Jake Rogers and Trey Sweeney — the Tigers were 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position this series. In the regular season, 144 batters had reached a two-strike count against Clase. Only 14 of them had registered hits. Only one had launched a homer. Carpenter joined the short list of hitters to stand his ground against Clase with two strikes, and in the process, he gave the Tigers new life in the ALDS, just their latest dose of magic.
ABSOLUTE CINEMA. THE @TIGERS EVEN THE SERIES. #ALDS pic.twitter.com/PsRzm5sWPY
— MLB (@MLB) October 7, 2024
Tarik Skubal powers the Tigers once again
The Tigers were 22-10 in games Tarik Skubal started coming into Game 2. He is their ace, their only rotation power, the horse who got them here. So of course the Tigers rode Skubal as long as they could. He was masterful through the first four innings. He induced a key 4-6-3 double play to end the fifth and a 6-4-3 double play to end the sixth. As he strutted off the field, he waved his fingers to the Cleveland crowd, welcoming their reaction. A.J. Hinch pulled Skubal after 92 pitches and seven innings, another masterful effort in a stellar season full of them. Skubal’s changeup was again his calling card. Guardians batters whiffed on seven of their 12 swings against the change, and Skubal finished with eight strikeouts.
So make it 23-10. And if this series reaches Game 5, expect Skubal to be on the mound again
Matthew Boyd delivered against his old team
In late June, Boyd, completing his recovery from Tommy John surgery, tuned in to a Guardians-Orioles game. He watched the Guardians win a wild one, 10-8, and he marveled at the energy and camaraderie every time the camera panned to Cleveland’s dugout. He wanted to be a part of it. The Guardians had expressed interest. They attended his showcase in California earlier that month. And after conversations with Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt and coaches Craig Albernaz and Kai Correa — and after watching the tight-knit team reach its high-water mark of the season that night in Baltimore — he signed with the club. No one would have forecast that he’d eventually be the team’s choice to start Game 2 of the ALDS. But the Guardians dealt with rotation leaks all summer, and once Boyd returned to the mound in mid-August, he never resembled a guy who had spent 14 months on the shelf. He looked the part again Monday as he held Detroit scoreless for 4 2/3 innings before handing the ball to the league’s best bullpen, the same script that fueled a Game 1 win for the Guardians. Boyd worked around a single and a walk in the third and he shook off a leadoff double in the fourth by notching a pair of strikeouts to end the inning.
This time, though, the Tigers got to the pen at the end. Clase, who allowed five earned runs during the regular season, surrendered three on one momentum-altering swing.
(Top photo of Carpenter after his home run: Jason Miller / Getty Images)
