Carpenter homers, reaches 6 times in near-unparalleled playoff performance

SEATTLE -- Tigers manager A.J. Hinch laid all his cards on the table Friday night with Kerry Carpenter batting leadoff. There were no tricks up his sleeve or sleight of hand, just a simple challenge laid down to the Mariners.

Once Hinch noticed during Games 1 and 2 that Seattle also orchestrated its pitching changes around where Carpenter came up a third time, Hinch moved his right fielder to the top of the lineup.

Entering Game 5 of the AL Division series, each of Carpenter’s five career hits against Seattle starter George Kirby had gone for home runs, so having Carpenter right out front was almost a taunt to the Mariners to pick their poison:

Either let Kirby face Carpenter an oh-so-crucial third time and risk Carpenter doing what he does best against Kirby. Or, hoping to avoid history (and homers) repeating itself a sixth time, turn to the bullpen and give an early hook to the guy who’d held Detroit to just three hits and one run over his five innings.

Manager Dan Wilson sent Gabe Speier to the mound to relieve Kirby, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter.

Carpenter, whose two-run homer off Kirby in Game 1 of the ALDS swung that game in Detroit’s favor, did it again in the sixth inning of the decisive Game 5, turning on a 1-0 fastball Speier and drilling it a Statcast-projected 411 feet out to dead center to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead on Friday night.

Coming into the night, Carpenter had hit just one home run vs. a left-handed pitcher since April 9. In the regular season, he hit just .217 vs. southpaws.

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Wilson knew that. He also knew that Carpenter has absolutely owned Kirby -- the two knocks against him Friday pushed his career line vs. the Seattle right-hander to 7-for-13 with five home runs.

But Hinch had faith in Carpenter nonetheless, sticking with the 28-year-old rather than go with a pinch-hitter who had better splits against lefty pitching.

"I wasn't going to let him run Carp out of the game," Hinch said. "He put a really good swing on a really good pitcher and obviously gave us a big boost."

So with the series on the line, Wilson made the move he didn't make in Game 1 -- but did in Game 2 -- bringing his lefty specialist in Speier in for Carpenter’s third at-bat of the game, after Kirby surrendered a double to Javier Báez to open the frame.

That knock in itself was dramatic, with Báez sending a slider over the outer half of the plate toward the left-center gap. Julio Rodríguez got to the ball before it could get by him, but Báez tested him anyway and dove safely into second base, just out of the reach of Jorge Polanco’s tag.

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So with the tying run on base, Wilson came out for Kirby, hoping to quell the rally.

In Game 2, Speier struck out Carpenter swinging on a fastball over the heart of the plate. This time, Carpenter turned on the exact same pitch and turned the game on its head, flipping a 1-0 hole into a 2-1 lead with three and a half innings to play and Tarik Skubal on the mound making postseason strikeout history on the other side of things.

Carpenter became the seventh player to hit a go-ahead home run in the sixth inning or later while trailing in a winner-take-all playoff game, and just the fourth since 1980.

“I was pretty sure [it was out], but I knew I hit it pretty high,” Carpenter said of his homer, “and it is a little cold out. It's not the best hitters’ park, so I thought I got it, but I was a little bit unsure there for a second. I was just making sure.”

He didn’t stop there. Carpenter reached base safely six times during the 3-2, 15-inning loss, tied for the most in a postseason game with Kenny Lofton (1995 World Series, Game 3) and Stan Hack (1945 World Series, Game 6).

Of those, only Carpenter’s feat was during a winner-take-all game.