Offense bails out Kenta Maeda with comeback, but Detroit Tigers lose, 9-8, to Guardians

Another bad performance from veteran starter Kenta Maeda, who received boos from fans when he made his final walk from the mound to the dugout with an ERA of 7.26 in 16 starts, buried the Detroit Tigers in a six-run hole in the early innings of Tuesday's game.

But there were cheers to come.

The Tigers' offense, thanks to home runs from three different players, clawed all the way back to tie the game at seven runs in the seventh inning.

The improbable comeback fell short, however, as the Tigers lost, 9-8, to the Cleveland Guardians in the 10th inning Tuesday in the second of four games in the series at Comerica Park.

"I'm incredibly proud of this group for tonight," manager A.J. Hinch said. "We were in a hole early, and the hole got bigger, and we kept chipping away. You gotta have some resolve in this game, and that's a good sign."

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The Guardians scored two runs in the top of the 10th, and the Tigers answered with just one run in the bottom of the frame, though they advanced the tying run to third base. The Tigers (43-49) had their four-game winning streak snapped.

Right-handed reliever Will Vest, who completed the ninth inning, took the mound for the top of the 10th inning, with the free extra-inning runner on second base.

A single from Steven Kwan, hitting .363 this season en route to an All-Star start in the outfield, put runners on the corners. An ensuing groundout provided two runners in scoring position but left first base open with one out, so the Tigers intentionally walked All-Star José Ramírez — for the third consecutive plate appearance — to load the bases.

"That tells you what I think about Ramírez," Hinch said.

Fellow All-Star Josh Naylor, who didn't record a hit after the two previous intentional walks to Ramírez, slapped Vest's two-strike fastball, located middle-middle, into center for an RBI single and an 8-7 lead. The Guardians extended their lead to 9-7 with Brayan Rocchio's sacrifice fly to left field, scoring Kwan.

In the bottom of the 10th, Guardians right-handed reliever Emmanuel Clase — another All-Star, as one of the best closers in baseball — retired the first two batters with balls in play, allowing Carson Kelly to cut the Tigers' deficit to 9-8 with a sacrifice fly. Gio Urshela and Wenceel Pérez produced back-to-back two-out singles, but Justyn-Henry Malloy lined out to center field, stranding runners on the corners and ending the game.

"You just want to get the job done in that spot," Malloy said. "It's a privilege to be able to be in that spot, so you want to be able to take advantage of it and come through, and tonight, I didn't, and unfortunately, we lost, but we'll come back tomorrow."

The Guardians stranded the bases loaded — Kwan (single), Ramírez (intentional walk) and Naylor (walk) — in the eighth inning with left-handed reliever Andrew Chafin on the mound.

Pinch-hitter David Fry flew out to left field.

Left fielder Riley Greene didn't pick up the fly ball right away, but he recovered with plenty of time to catch the ball for the third out in the eighth.

Greene laughed on his way back to the dugout.

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Comeback Cats

Trailing 6-0, the Tigers scored two runs in the third inning, one run in the fourth and four runs in the sixth.

Colt Keith put the Tigers on the board, cutting the deficit to 6-2, with a two-run home run to right field off right-hander Ben Lively. The 22-year-old Keith has five homers in his past 14 games, bringing him to eight homers in his 81-game rookie season.

A leadoff triple from Urshela — his first extra-base hit since June 12 — led to the Tigers' third run, as he scored from third base to make it 6-3 when Pérez grounded out for the second out in the fourth inning.

The Guardians increased their lead to 7-3 in the top of the sixth inning, but the Tigers responded with a four-run bottom of the sixth, ignited by singles from Keith and Kelly.

With two outs, Urshela launched a three-run home run — his first homer since June 1 and his third homer in 64 games — to left-center, trimming the Tigers' deficit to 7-6.

"When you're down by a lot, you need a big swing," Hinch said. "It's nice to put together four and five and six quality at-bats, but at some point, during the at-bats, you're going to need somebody to do something big to put up a crooked number."

Urshela turned on a first-pitch sinker from Lively.

"That's where the momentum shifted," Malloy said. "You just wanted to build off that."

That's when the Guardians replaced Lively with right-handed reliever Nick Sandlin, but Malloy greeted Sandlin by crushing his middle-middle slider for a solo home run, tying the game at 7-7.

Malloy is hitting .195 in the first 28 games of his rookie season, but he has five homers.

"It's just trying to stack up good at-bats and trying to stack up good days," Malloy said. "It's doing the little things right in my at-bats, winning in the margins, so I want to continue to do that, and if I continue to do that, it's stacking that confidence. It's all I want."

Lively allowed six runs on seven hits and one walk with four strikeouts across 5⅓ innings, throwing 80 pitches. His ERA jumped from 3.14 to 3.59 in his 15th start.

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Kenta Maeda struggles again

Maeda allowed six runs on seven hits and one walk with two strikeouts across 2⅔ innings, throwing 49 pitches. He surrendered three runs in the first inning and three runs in the third inning.

The Guardians hit two home runs in the first inning.

Maeda signed a two-year, $24 million contract with this Tigers in November 2023. The 36-year-old has allowed 15 runs in his past two starts, spanning just 6⅓ innings.

"There's definitely frustration," Maeda said in Japanese through interpreter Daichi Sekizaki. "Nothing really is going right at this point, and I'm causing too much trouble to the team, and I feel sorry about that."

In the second inning, Maeda struck out Austin Hedges for the 1,000th strikeout of his eight-year MLB career, becoming the third Japanese-born player (along with Yu Darvish and Hideo Nomo) to reach the milestone.

He generated three whiffs on 22 swings — a 13.6% whiff rate — with one splitter, one slider and one sweeper. His four-seam fastball averaged 91.1 mph. The Guardians averaged a 94.9 mph exit velocity on 12 balls in play against him.

"It's hard to narrow it down to just one problem," Maeda said. "My pitching, overall, hasn't been effective, so hopefully, I can find a solution to that."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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