St. Louis, Mo. — Riley Greene wasn’t going to let this one get away.
He’d singled in a run and hit a two-run homer earlier in the game, then sat in the dugout — he was the designated hitter — and watched the Cardinals erase a 4-0 lead against lefty ace Tarik Skubal.
But after the Tigers’ bats were hushed for five innings, he stroked an RBI double in the top of the ninth off reliever Kyle Leahy, scoring Zach McKinstry from first and giving the Tigers a 5-4 win Tuesday night at Busch Stadium.
“Riley Greene,” manager AJ Hinch said. “Who doesn’t want him up to bat. … He always seems to come up with big games and big moments.”
This game, the way the two teams scrapped and clawed, had a playoff feel to it.
“Just good baseball,” said catcher Jake Rogers, making his first start since April 8, coming off the injured list. “Just a good baseball game.”
It’s clear the Tigers (32-17) aren’t the only hot team team playing in this series. The Cardinals rode a 13-3 rampage into this game and did not cower when they fell behind 4-0 to the reigning American League Cy Young winner.
“Tarik is really good at competing and he had to tonight,” Hinch said.
Skubal limited the Cardinals to one hit through four innings, but it was a grind. Even as he was ringing up 100 mph with both his four-seamer and sinker, the Cardinals were working long counts and had, by the fifth inning, hit eight balls with exit velocities of 90 mph or harder.
“They were tough on Tarik,” Hinch said. “Putting balls in play, conceding the pull-side. They did a really good job of making him work and making him battle. They drove his pitch count up and frustrated him a little bit just by the quality of their at-bats.”
Skubal was also a little bit unlucky. The one hit he gave up before the fifth inning was a pop up that the wind blew behind shortstop Trey Sweeney. Then in the fifth, Ivan Herrera, who is hitting .472 since coming off the injured list, blooped a single in front of right-fielder Kerry Carpenter. Carpenter lost the ball in the lights.
BOX SCORE: Tigers 5, Cardinals 4
Nolan Arenado, who has been struggling, lofted Skubal’s next pitch, a first-pitch slider located in the middle of the plate, into the left-field seats to cut the Tigers’ lead in half.
“I missed (my spot) by about 20 inches,” Skubal said. “Not what you really want. But he’s a good player and he put a good swing on the ball.”
The sixth inning was a head-shaker. It started with Masyn Winn rolling an infield single. Then, with Willson Contreras dancing in and out of the batter’s box, Skubal balked. He’d never committed a balk in his big-league career.
From the explanations, Contreras may have baited Skubal into it.
“What confused me, he looked at me like he was ready to hit and then put his head back down and I’d already started coming set,” Skubal said. “I just thought they (Contreras and home plate umpire Roberto Ortiz) were going to do the ‘Let them look at you’ thing. But he looked twice at me.”
Since the pitch clock was adopted, umpires make sure the batter and the pitcher make eye contact before the start of the pitch to eliminate quick pitches. Skubal, once he sees the batter ready, typically drops his head and then goes into his motion.
He did that the first time, but Contreras dropped his head again and Skubal stopped himself, committing the balk.
“I don’t really understand,” he said. “Technically it’s a balk. But with the pitch clock rules, you have to look at him. He looked at me with 11 seconds left and then he drops his head and there’s seven seconds left. It’s a bunch of silly stuff that happens. But whatever. I get it.”
Giving Winn a free 90 feet proved costly. With two outs, that man again, Herrera, lined an RBI single to right to make it a 4-3 game and end Skubal’s night.
“I thought it was a good outing,” said Skubal, who went 5.2 innings (94 pitches) and allowed three runs on five hits with eight strikeouts. “My stuff was fine, I competed in the zone. You guys (media) are going to chase the results. I’m going to chase process and I’ve stacked a lot of good days of work in a row. I like where I’m at.”
With a bullpen game slated for Wednesday, it was far earlier than Hinch wanted to go to his bullpen.
“We want to win the game that’s in front of us,” he said. “I have no idea how tomorrow is going to go. But we were in position to win the game. Even when we lost the lead, we’re going to our guys to give us the best chance.”
It was bumpy. Brenan Hanifee gave up a couple of hits but stranded the bases loaded and got out of the six with the Tigers still up 4-3.
In the seventh, though, lefty Tyler Holton entered and gave up a leadoff double to No. 9 hitter Victor Scott II. A sacrifice fly by Winn tied the game.
In his last nine outings, Holton has been tagged for seven runs and 13 hits.
In the eighth, Will Vest worked around a pair of walks thanks to a clutch running catch in the right-center gap by Javier Báez.
“We put up some big at-bats ourselves,” Hinch said. “It took a lot to get through that game.”
Cardinals manager Ollie Marmol used right-handed reliever Leahy in the ninth, even though lefties McKinstry and Greene were coming up. The reason: Leahy has held lefties to a .114 average this season.
McKinstry, after Kerry Carpenter led off the game with a 412-foot home run, doubled and scored in the first and then led off the ninth with a single to right.
Greene followed. He fell behind 1-2, fouling a 1-1 changeup off his left knee cap.
“Kind of hurt,” Greene said. “It was like hitting my funny bone but in my knee. I was like, ‘Ah, here we go.'”
The next pitch was a curveball that he slashed into the right-center gap. McKinstry sped around from first without drawing a throw to the plate.
“Team win,” Greene said. “Zach started off both those innings and we were able to get the win. But that’s fun right there. Tie ballgame. You’ve got a chance to win it or go ahead. That’s fun. That’s why we play.”
Tommy Kahnle pitched a clean ninth to earn his sixth save. The Tigers have a chance to win another series Wednesday, with a 12:15 p.m. Central Time. Lefty Brant Hurter will start the game.
“It’s going to be a short turnaround,” Rogers said. “But we’ll be ready.”
@cmccosky
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