DETROIT -- For eight innings on Wednesday, the Guardians’ offense was silent, once again unable to muster an ounce of run support for starter Tanner Bibee. Heading into the ninth inning, there was a common goal inside the first-base dugout at Comerica Park.
“It really felt like the guys wanted to pick Tanner up with the game that he threw,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “That was the talk. It was, ‘Let’s get him some runs.’”
The Guardians got just enough while rallying to beat the Tigers, 3-2, in 10 innings to secure the four-game series win and extend their winning streak to a season-high five games. Angel Martínez’s RBI triple and José Ramírez’s RBI double in the top of the 10th helped send Cleveland to victory.
The Guardians have won eight of their past nine games and find themselves a season-high seven games over .500 (29-22) and in first place in the American League Central. Meanwhile, the Tigers -- who many viewed as the preseason favorite to win the division -- sit 8 1/2 games back tied for last place at 20-30.
These two teams know better than anyone that division titles are not won in May. Last year, the Guardians were 15 1/2 games behind the Tigers, and ultimately set a MLB record for the largest deficit overcome to win a division title.
There’s a long way to go this season, but the Guardians are playing good baseball right now, with Wednesday bringing back a familiar feeling.
“That's been our kind of motif for the past three years,” Bibee said of the Guardians getting off the mat. “No matter how long we've been down, no matter how long we haven’t done anything, we can flip a switch at any point and put up some runs. That's the ‘down but never out’ aspect of it.”
Bibee entered Wednesday with the lowest run support average in the Majors (1.38) among pitchers who have tossed at least 40 innings. That trend repeated itself in Detroit. He threw eight innings and allowed one run on four hits and one walk with five strikeouts, but was in line to pick up the loss.
The Guardians scattered eight baserunners through eight innings and trailed, 1-0. Detroit called on right-hander Will Vest in the ninth to face Daniel Schneemann, Travis Bazzana and Steven Kwan, after closer Kenley Jansen pitched a scoreless top of the eighth against the top of Cleveland’s lineup.
Schneemann and Bazzana led off the ninth with back-to-back singles. After a Kwan sacrifice bunt, Patrick Bailey evened things at 1-1 with a RBI groundout to second baseman Hao-Yu Lee.
“I was trying to get something over the heart of the plate and move the ball,” Bailey said. “We've done a really good job of baserunning in those situations.”
Ideally, the Guardians would play for two runs and not bunt. Their priority was to keep the game going. Vogt noted how Detroit used a lot of relievers already -- six in a planned bullpen game. The Guardians' bullpen was fresher. The Tigers also played their infield back during Bailey’s at-bat. He just had to put the ball in play.
“We wanted to tie the game,” Vogt said.
If the Tigers, who are 4-14 in May, played the infield in, they may have had a chance to throw Schneemann out at the plate on Bailey’s grounder. But a ground ball also could have snuck into the outfield to score two runs.
"The hard part is going down 2-1 felt pretty defeating,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “At the end of the day, we had another at-bat, and we're going to get two rounds of at-bats for their one. And so, we're not going to lose the game there, not the way this season has gone, not the way this week has gone. What this team needed was to continue to play. That's the risk/reward."
Detroit had a chance to walk things off in the ninth. Erik Sabrowski walked Kevin McGonigle and Dillon Dingler to lead off the inning. The Guardians’ lefty recovered to strike out Riley Greene, before Vogt called on Colin Holderman. The right-hander struck out Matt Vierling and Wenceel Pérez to send the game to the 10th inning, paving the way for Martínez and Ramírez’s RBI knocks.
Cade Smith entered in the 10th and secured his 13th consecutive save, his 16th in 18 opportunities overall.
Bibee may have left the ballpark with his 2026 record still at 0-6, but the Guardians don’t win Wednesday without him.
“Tanner got the win,” Vogt said. “Tanner was definitely the player of the game.”