DETROIT — Riley Greene and Javier Báez homered in a four-run sixth inning and the Detroit Tigers kept their season alive with a 9-3 win over the Seattle Mariners in Game 4 of the American League Division Series.
The Tigers forced a Game 5 by winning at Comerica Park for the first time in more than a month. They went 0-8 after Tarik Skubal’s 6-0 win over the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 6, including Seattle’s 8-4 win on Tuesday.
The series decider will be Friday in Seattle, with Skubal facing George Kirby.
After Detroit tied the game with three runs in the fifth, Greene gave the Tigers a 4-3 advantage with a leadoff homer off Gabe Speier in the sixth.
Spencer Torkelson followed with a double and scored Detroit’s fifth run on Zach McKinstry’s single before Báez made it 7-3 with his sixth postseason homer.
Gleyber Torres became the third Tigers All-Star to homer when he led off the seventh with a shot to right before Báez’s eighth-inning groundout brought in Detroit’s ninth run.
Troy Melton, Detroit’s Game 1 starter, picked up the win with three scoreless innings of relief.
The first 4½ innings looked like another Tigers disaster.
Casey Mize allowed one run while striking out six batters in the first three innings, but needed 54 pitches to do it. That may have played a part in A.J. Hinch’s decision to send lefty Tyler Holton to the mound for the fourth inning.
The decision didn’t work — Holton faced three batters and left with the bases loaded and no one out. Hinch brought in set-up man Kyle Finnegan, who got Victor Robles to ground into a run-scoring double play before J.P. Crawford popped out.
The Mariners, though, got to Finnegan in the fifth. Randy Arozarena led off with a single, took second on a wild pitch and scored on Cal Raleigh’s single — his seventh hit of the series. That made it 3-0, increasing the booing from an angry home crowd.
Dillon Dingler’s RBI double got the Tigers on the board with one out in the fifth — the first run Detroit had scored against Mariners starter Bryce Miller in 23⅓ innings.
Speier came in, but Jahmai Jones lined his first pitch down the left-field line for a pinch-hit double to make it 3-2 before Báez tied the game with a base hit.
