DETROIT -- The light mist falling over Comerica Park for most of Saturday night gave some weight to the dirt in front of home plate. That still didn’t give it much of a chance against Ron Gardenhire’s spikes, which is how the Tigers’ manager ended up arguing and apologizing moments apart.

Gardenhire had already been ejected by plate umpire Manny Gonzalez for arguing balls and strikes before he left the Tigers’ dugout, so he was going to make it worth his trouble. He punctuated his argument with a kick at the dirt, which flew up in front of Indians batter Oscar Mercado, which is why Gardenhire apologized to him.

It was that kind of night for Gardenhire and the Tigers. And though it improved with a seventh-inning rally, it ended no less frustrating for them in their 4-2 loss to the Indians.

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“You never know when you call up a young pitcher what exactly you’re going to get,” said bench coach Steve Liddle, who took over managerial duties after Gardenhire’s ejection. “[If] we catch the ball, if we make some plays, it’s a different ballgame. We’ve been saying that a little bit too much here lately, and we need to turn the page and get back to playing championship baseball.”

This is what Gardenhire and his veteran coaches want their team to be thinking about. This is the same team that had a picture of a World Series trophy posted to the clubhouse doors in Spring Training, telling players not to walk through if they didn’t believe they could win it.

After spending Spring Training setting the mentality, they now find themselves going over mental mistakes. And while Gardenhire has exercised abundant patience, even he has his frustrations.

“It’s OK. I mean, I’ve got my bosses,” Gardenhire said Friday. “I come in here and I’ve got [general manager] Al [Avila] and those guys, and they keep me on the light side. They know what’s going on, and they’re not trying to beat me up too awful much. We’re just trying to keep figuring out ways to get people in here that can get the job done. It’s not an easy job.”

On a night when Gardenhire feared his pitching staff might implode with another short start, he picked up four scoreless innings from just-recalled rookie starter Gregory Soto, despite four walks. Just when Gardenhire seemed to have the perfect setup for a piggyback start and a chance to win, long reliever Nick Ramirez inherited not only a scoreless duel, but the Tigers’ defensive woes.

Jordan Luplow’s fifth-inning fly ball had an expected batting average of .010, according to Statcast. The sliver of a chance popped up as right fielder Nicholas Castellanos turned and lost the ball in front of the wall for an RBI double, fueling a three-run Cleveland rally.

Castellanos said he read Luplow’s swing and broke in.

“If you go back and look at how he hit it, the way he lunged and kind of stood up, I took two hard steps in, and then I was like, 'Oh no,'” Castellanos said. “I just turned around and tried to do the best I could.”

Gardenhire’s fifth ejection of the season, and 80th of his career, came an inning later as Ramirez fell behind in the count on Mercado.

Gardenhire argued that Indians starter Shane Bieber was getting low strike calls that his pitchers were not. The crowd roared through the rain as Gardenhire kicked the dirt and marched back towards the dugout steps.

Gardenhire is now more than halfway to his career high of eight ejections in a season, set in 2006 and matched the next season. He doesn’t argue to vent or inspire, he insists, but he’ll argue to protect his players from getting tossed. That wasn’t in danger Saturday.

The Tigers rallied without him on Brandon Dixon’s two-run single in the seventh inning off a tiring Bieber, but the Indians produced a crucial insurance run an inning later when former Tiger Leonys Martin doubled, took third on a fly ball to medium-depth left field, then stole home as right-handed reliever Victor Alcantara looked away.

“Every time I finish my windup, I just look down,” Alcantara said through translator Carlos Guillen. “That's what [Martin] noticed, that it was a regular thing for me. He took advantage of that."

That didn’t go over well in the dugout, where pitching coach Rick Anderson had a pointed conversation at inning’s end.

“That's a Little League play,” Liddle said. “I mean, for a right-handed pitcher to allow a runner that's directly right in front of you [to score], and then our third baseman not going over toward the bag as Leonys was walking down the line, that's Little League stuff. That's what you get when youth starts to show up on plays like that.”

Gardenhire knew the project that he taking over when he took the Tigers’ managerial job. That doesn’t means he takes times like these easily.

“You get young players and you're playing against a veteran team, a playoff-caliber team; those things tend to show up, and we've got to grow with it,” Liddle said. “We have got to learn from our mistakes. The general idea is that you don't want to have to keep repeating the same thing over and over. How many times do you a tell a guy? The answer is one more time, until somebody up above says that's enough and we'll move on and move forward. Hopefully they'll get it. Hopefully it's a learning experience for the guy.”

Even with those frustrations, the Tigers had the tying run at the plate in the ninth inning thanks to Cabrera’s double. Cleveland closer Brad Hand struck out Dixon, then pinch-hitter JaCoby Jones to send Detroit to its 16th loss in its last 18 home games.

“Baseball’s a tough game, man. It’s not very forgiving,” Castellanos said. “The only thing you can do is strap it on and try to win the last game tomorrow before an off-day.”