Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal on Guardians matchup, David Fry injury
Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal talks to reporters about facing the Guardians in the AL wild-card series Sept. 29, 2025, at Progressive Field.
CLEVELAND — It’s called Guards Ball.
The Cleveland Guardians play a grit-and-grind brand of baseball rooted in hustle and precision: bunts dropped down to advance runners, singles stretched into doubles, pressure applied with fearless baserunning. The Guardians’ weak offense manufactures runs through fundaments, while their elite pitching staff stacks zeros and their sharp defense keeps clean.
To open the MLB playoffs, the Detroit Tigers stole a page from the Guardians’ book — for now, let’s call it Tigs Ball — in the seventh inning Tuesday, Sept. 30, during Game 1 of the American League wild-card series at Progressive Field.
A rare bunt led to a 2-1 win.
“These games are so crazy,” said manager A.J. Hinch, whose Tigers are one win away from advancing to the ALDS for the second straight year. “You can play for the big inning, which we often do, but we have that play in our playbook for moments like this, where it was an extreme need to take the lead with so few outs left.”
The Tigers averaged just 2.5 runs a game while losing 13 times in their final 16 games of the regular season, suffering from too many strikeouts while regressing into a home run-or-bust approach. Until the offense clicks, runs need to be manufactured if the Tigers want any chance of making a deep run in the postseason.
That’s exactly what happened in Tuesday’s seventh inning.
“You want to talk to me?” Zach McKinstry said. “All I did was lay down a measly bunt.”
A bunt, yes – but a game-changing one.
At the time, the Tigers and Guardians were tied, 1-1. The Tigers had runners on the corners and one out against right-handed reliever Hunter Gaddis. McKinstry received a first-pitch changeup and pushed a bunt down the first-base line.
Riley Greene scored from third for a 2-1 lead.
“It was the perfect play,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “We knew it was coming. He laid down an absolutely perfect bunt. If you lay down a perfect bunt, you cannot defend the safety squeeze. It was an absolute perfect bunt.”
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Although Vogt insisted the Guardians saw the bunt coming, the decision from Hinch in the seventh inning surprised everyone else at Progressive Field.
Except for McKinstry and Greene.
“I knew it was coming,” McKinstry said. “We talked about it before the game.”
“We had some discussions,” Greene said. “Whatever it takes to win.”
The Tigers relied on a sacrifice bunt just five times in the regular season, ranking 29th among 30 MLB teams — and never with a runner on third base. For reference, the Guardians had 28 sacrifice bunts in the regular season.
Before Tuesday’s game, Hinch told his players to be prepared for the signal to bunt.
“I just got a good pitch,” McKinstry said. “I got it in the zone, and I was nice and relaxed up there, and I was able to get it down. … It was nice and slow for me to get it down.”
His teammates reacted to the sacrifice bunt.
“I’m like, ‘I got to go back to spring training,'” Greene said. “I had to remember. We haven’t done it all year. See the ball down, then you go.”
“It was a big-time play,” said left-hander Tarik Skubal, who allowed one run on three hits and three walks with 14 strikeouts across 7â…” innings in a dominant 107-pitch performance. “It was perfectly executed. Make them field the ball and throw it to first. To put us up 2-1, that’s all we needed today.”
“By any means necessary,” Spencer Torkelson said. “A little bit (surprised), maybe, but I mean, what an unbelievable bunt? That’s not easy. I love seeing it.”
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Before the bunt, the Guardians tied the game in the fourth inning by putting Guards Ball on full display, scoring their only run without the ball leaving the infield.
A weak ground-ball single and a seven-pitch walk resulted in two runners on with two outs for Gabriel Arias, who hit a high chopper off home plate that landed on the infield grass between Skubal and two infielders.
On Skubal’s throw home, Angel MartÃnez scored on a head-first slide.
“I was at a loss for words because they just scratch and claw and come at you,” Hinch said. “Crazy stuff happens around the Guardians because they play their 27 outs. It’s a play I’ve never really seen. I’m sure I have in my years, but it’s par for the course when you play Cleveland.”
The Tigers took a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning on McKinstry’s bunt, but it wouldn’t have been a classic Tigers-Guardians showdown without drama in the ninth inning.
The Guardians had José RamÃrez on third base with no outs.
To escape the jam, right-handed reliever Will Vest fielded a comebacker and tagged RamÃrez between third base and home plate for the second out.
“Anyone new to the Tigers-Guardians (series), this is what they look like,” Hinch said. “Like every game. And obviously, Tarik set an incredible tone for us.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him@EvanPetzold.
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