Mitch Albom: With series on line, Detroit Tigers get playbook stolen by Cleveland Guardians

The long ball returned. So did the long series. It was dreamy for a couple of hours, but any Detroit fantasies of a quick end to this ALDS died Thursday night in the seventh inning of Game 4, when the Cleveland Guardians took a page out of the Detroit Tigers playbook and sent just the right pinch hitter up against the supposedly untouchable reliever.

Hey, no fair stealing our script! David Fry, who’d been on Cleveland’s bench, stepped into the box against Detroit’s Beau Briske, who’d been a Goliath on the mound, with no runs surrendered in his last four appearances. He’d struck out Fry the last three times he’d faced him.

“I didn’t know that,” Fry would later say.

It showed. Fry did what the Tigers had been doing lately to the mighty Cleveland bullpen. Took out a slingshot. Aimed for the forehead.

And with the sellout Comerica Park crowd relishing a 3-2 lead, and cheering in lusty anticipation of a chance to play for the AL pennant, this David launched a two-strike pitch all the way to the left field bullpen.

Dinged.

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“You dream about it as a kid, and think about it all the time,” Fry would say of the two-run homer that flipped the score and the script and who knows, maybe the series? Cleveland, who had already seen slugger José Ramírez launch an earlier ball halfway to Hamtramck, was back in black, with a lead that it would not relinquish in an eventual 5-4 victory .

And Tiger fans teemed out of the park with two words on their minds:

“Tarik Skubal.”

Dinged.

Tigers had their chances

So it’ll come down to the Tigers ace on Saturday night in Cleveland, and maybe that’s the way it should be. For all the magical conjuring that A.J. Hinch has whipped up on this October stage, baseball fortunes often turn on the biggest pitcher. The Tigers have the best in the game this year. They can’t complain about their chance.

But they can bemoan their other chances — the ones they had and didn’t take advantage of Thursday. You could sense that, once Cleveland grabbed a first-inning lead, the Tigers would need as many runs as possible in this one. But too many times, even when they scored a run, they left men in the boat instead of bringing them to shore.

Want proof?  Count how all these innings ended:

Second inning: Jake Rogers, with two men on, hit into a double play.

Fourth inning: Spencer Torkelson hit into a double play.

Sixth inning: Trey Sweeney grounded out with the bases loaded.

Seventh inning: Matt Vierling struck out with a man on.

Eighth inning: Sweeney struck out with men on second and third.

All told, they stranded eight runners. This is the ALDS, not a toy roulette wheel. You’re not gonna get endless spins. Eight men left on base, against Cleveland’s stellar relievers, is just too many.

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Especially on a night when Cleveland remembered it had an offense.

“They put up a really good fight,” A.J. Hinch said. “Got some big swings.”

Yes, they did. Early. In fact, the Tigers' 20 consecutive shutout innings came to a halt not long after the National Anthem.

Game 4, only the second postseason game at Comerica Park in a decade, looked nothing like Game 3 the night before. Whereas Game 3 was a Detroit shutdown, a shutout, a sparkle-on-defense, take-advantage-on-offense gem, Game 4 began with three singles by the Guardians in the first five at-bats.

When Steven Kwan came racing home before the fans all found their seats, Cleveland had its first run in the last four days, and a rediscovered confidence.

Yes, the Tigers would tie it up in the second inning, on a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded. But in the fifth, with Tyler Holton having relieved Reese Olson, the indominable Ramírez came to bat.

Ramírez is a six-time All-Star and simply one of the best players in the game. He’d been silenced by Tigers pitchers since a lone double in Game 1. But you hold down Ramírez the way you hold down a grizzly bear: Carefully, and not for long.

With two outs, the bear took Holton’s second pitch and sent it halfway to Hamtramck.

Boom. The Guardians’ second home run of the series. And you wondered if that wasn’t the kickstart they needed to remind themselves THEY actually won the AL Central, not Detroit.

“That energized our dugout,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said, “like you wouldn’t believe.”

Of course, true to dramatic form, the Tigers came back minutes later with a home run of their own. And, of course, it was Zach McKinstry, who didn’t even play the night before.

And of course, the next inning, Wenceel Pérez, who HAD played the previous two games, came off the bench as a pinch-hitter and sliced an RBI single into center field to give the Tigers a 3-2 lead.

And if only Detroit were writing the script, it would have ended there.

But there are two teams in this thing. And Cleveland didn’t get here by hitchhiking.

These teams looking more and more alike

So when Fry’s two-strike shot went over the wall in the seventh, the Comerica crowd was quieted for the first time in two nights. And you had a sense that the top hat and the rabbit were being packed up, and the magic show was over for the night.

“I was just trying to get a pitch to hit,” Fry told reporters. “Had some opportunities yesterday to drive some runners in, didn’t get the job done, so I was looking to get it done for the boys.”

That’s the difference between one night and the next. The Tigers' parade of pitchers wasn’t the dominant force it had been. Five of the six Detroit hurlers gave up a run. Maybe they were getting a bit tired. Even in short stints, pressure pitching in playoff baseball can tire you out.

Or maybe the Guardians have seen enough of them now to get a better bead on their pitches. Show the same magic trick too many times, folks start to figure out where the cards are hidden. Meanwhile, Cleveland rolled out their ace closer, Emmanuel Clase, in the eighth, and this time, he got the job done — the last five outs, including fanning Vierling to end the game.

So we now have two teams who have both stared down a deficit and come back in this series, all tied at 2-2. And honestly, they are looking more and more alike.

“We got a bunch of tough dudes,” Fry said. “We get down 2-1, we’re in the locker room, it’s just another day. We show up ready to play. … Get a win, let’s go to Game 5.”

Doesn’t that sound like a Tiger?

Even the managers were nearly indistinguishable.

“What a great baseball game,” Vogt said.

“What an incredible game,” Hinch said.

Well, all right. We can agree on that. And here we sit, four games played, one game left for the right to chase the pennant. Thursday might not have ended the way Detroiters wanted, but ask yourself this: who you would rather be on Saturday? The Guardians, who just used up their best starter, Tanner Bibee, or the Tigers, who have a fully rested Skubal?

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

Dinged.

Hey. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Take a breath, and set the watches for Saturday. No matter what, it’s going to be a hell of a finish.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com . Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com . Follow him @mitchalbom .

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: With series on line, Detroit Tigers get playbook stolen by Cleveland Guardians