Guardians fall to Tigers in series finale

CLEVELAND — The Guardians entered Thursday night needing a victory over the Tigers and an Astros loss to clinch a postseason berth. Neither happened. Houston routed the Athletics and Cleveland lost 4-2 at Progressive Field to Detroit, which hit three home runs off left-hander Parker Messick to slow the Guardians' late-season momentum. The Tigers climbed back into a tie atop the Central Division with the Guardians, who own the tiebreaker after clinching the season series 8-5. Cleveland's magic number to clinch the division title is at three, two to secure the final wild card berth. "We're in first place, aren't we? Sounds good to me," said catcher Austin Hedges. "We talk about winning series, one game at a time. Obviously, we wanted to win the game tonight, but we won the series. If we win every series moving forward, we're World Series champs." "I couldn't be more thrilled with the way our guys played these last three days," manager Stephen Vogt said of taking two of three from Detroit and taking over first place. "We played a great series. Our goal is to win series. We talk about it all year long, and we won the series, so we gotta do that one more time (against the Rangers beginning tonight). We gotta win a series this weekend and see what happens." Cleveland, which managed only five hits, fell to 18-6 in September, losing for only the third time in its last 19 games. About the only good news for the Guardians was Jose Ramirez reaching another milestone with his 726th extra-base hit — an RBI double in the eighth inning. He moved past Earl Averill for the most extra-base hits in franchise history. "I'm surprised he didn't do it earlier," Hedges said. "That record's gonna be untouchable by the time he's done playing." Messick allowed solo homers to Jahmai Jones and Wenceel Perez three batters into the game and surrendered another solo shot to Riley Greene, bringing an end to an historic run for Cleveland's rotation. Messick was the first starter to surrender more than two runs, ending a franchise-record 19-game streak. The rookie got little support from his offense, which against the Tigers bullpen, had three hits over the first six innings — only two after the fourth — two on a pair of doubles from rookie C.J. Kayfus. Kayfus' two-out double in the second scored Cleveland's first run, while Hedges had a leadoff single in the eighth and came home on Ramirez's double. Hedges and Kayfus had four of the Guardians' hits. "We just couldn't get anything going," Vogt said. "We talked about it before the game, when you're facing a bullpen game, you gotta flip one of those guys, and we just weren't able to do that tonight. They did a really nice job against us and that was it." "When you can go out and do a bullpen day the way that they do, it's tough to beat," Hedges said. "They can go on matchups and all that, and it's the reason that they're a really good team." Hedges, not known for his offensive ability, has hits in five of the last nine games in which he's had more than one at-bat. "Hedgie has been swinging the bat unbelievable the last month, month and a half," Vogt said. "I tell you guys he can hit and we're seeing it, and just the quality of at-bat that he gives … he's got a great idea. He's convicted in his plan and he's sticking to it." "I feel really good about (my at-bats) the last month or so," Hedges said. "I feel like things have been going well, and I'm really pumped about my plan in the (batter's) box. I feel like it's a really good one, and I'm executing it and that's really all I can do." Messick lost the streak two innings in, allowing a double to Dillon Dingler, followed by a two-out RBI single to Javier Baez that put the Tigers in front 3-0. Even with the loss, Cleveland enters its season-ending, three-game series against the Rangers with the playoffs clearly in sight. "We're right where we want to be," Hedges said. "We go win this next series. We're right where we want to be and that's playing in October." Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him on X @CAwesomeheimer.