DETROIT _ On Friday night, a blowout loss. On Saturday night, a blowout win.
But through all the smoke and mirrors of the mid-summer trade deadline season, there are still games to be played and a Detroit Tigers team that is just crazy enough to think if they win enough of them, their fate might change.
Day-by-day, they preach the long game: A season is made up of 162 games. But every season is made up of series', anywhere between two and four games. If you simply win series', manager Brad Ausmus likes to say, things will take care of themselves.
Sunday afternoon, the Tigers won the series. They beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-5, in walk-off fashion and after losing seven of their past 11 series' before the All-Star break, won their first afterwards. It likely won't _ and shouldn't _ change their direction going forward but at the least, it showed a pulse is still there.
The two big plays at Comerica Park came courtesy of Miguel Cabrera and J.D. Martinez. In the 11th inning, Cabrera walked with the bases loaded to score Alex Avila. In the eighth inning, Martinez hit his 16th home run of the season, off the yellow line and overturned upon video review to tie the game.
Cabrera's winner was set up by Avila, who led off the inning against a left-handed pitcher with a walk, after falling behind no balls and two strikes. With two outs, Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson bobbled an inning-ending groundout and righty reliever Lucas Harrell walked Justin Upton to bring Cabrera to the plate with the bases loaded.
Martinez's homer tied the game after the Blue Jays jumped ahead on Anibal Sanchez with the last of three home runs on the day. It was Sanchez's first poor start since re-joining the Tigers' rotation late last month. Entering the start, he had appeared to have shaken off his home run woes, allowing one homer over the past 23 1/3 innings.
But the Blue Jays tagged him for three: Justin Smoak hit a two-run home run in the first inning, followed back-to-back by Kendrys Morales, and Jose Bautista's two-run line drive into the Tigers' bullpen put them ahead 5-4 in the fifth inning.
Sanchez allowed five runs on nine hits. He struck out three and walked none.
The Tigers responded to the early deficit with three runs of their own in the first: Upton doubled home a run before Cabrera and Martinez hit sacrifice flies. A key play in that inning was Donaldson bobbling a groundball from Nick Castellanos with Ian Kinsler on second base and nobody out. Instead of eating the ball, Donaldson tried for an improbable throw off his knees to get Castellanos, which allowed Kinsler to advance to third base, negating a double play opportunity.
The Tigers went ahead in the fourth inning, when an Alex Presley double fell in front of Bautista in right-center field and Ezequiel Carrera couldn't corral a hard-hit James McCann fly ball while crashing into the left-center field fence.
The Tigers squandered a big opportunity in the bottom of the eighth inning, putting the first two men on but coming away with nothing when Castellanos made a big blunder, getting doubled off second base on a soft line drive by Cabrera.
In relief of Sanchez, the Tigers bullpen allowed one hit in five innings.
