The Detroit Tigers made it official on Monday night, clinching the AL Central division with a win over the Kansas City Royals 6-3.
Miguel Cabrera went four-for-five in the game, including a home run that vaulted the Tigers into the playoffs for the second straight year. It's the first time Detroit has made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons in over 70 years, according to ESPN.
Rick Porcello pitched a stellar game, allowing one run and striking out three in five innings of work. He improved his record to 10-12 on the season.
"We wanted to win this game. That was our goal, to win this one," Cabrera said to the Associated Press. "We did it."
The Tigers took an early lead off of Johnny Peralta's fifth inning home run and busted the game open in the sixth by scoring five runs to go up 6-0.
Cabrera hit a solo shot to go up 2-0 and broke his tie with Josh Hamilton for the league-lead in home runs. Cabrera now is leading in the Triple Crown categories of home runs, RBIs and batting average. No player has won a Triple Crown since 1967 and Cabrera now sits in a good position to do it with only two games left.
Peralta added an RBI double after a fielding error by David Lough and then Gerald Laird hit a two-run double to push the lead to 6-0.
Bruce Chen pitched for the Royals and was cruising along until the rocky switch inning. He finished the day giving up ten hits, six runs and two home runs in 5 2/3 innings.
The Royals pushed back in the bottom of the sixth scoring on an Alex Gordon home run and a Jeff Francouer grounder, but only could cut it to 6-2. In the eight Francouer hit an RBI single, but that was all Kansas City could muster.
Closer Jose Valverde finished the game in the ninth inning for his 35th save on the season.
According to ESPN, the Tigers have won seven of the last eight games and also have beaten the Royals five straight times.
"You get that kind of momentum, usually it ends up very good," team owner Mike Ilitch said.
The Tigers officially turned their season around by clinching the division. The team started off slowly and sat behind the White Sox in the Central for most of the year. The team was under .500 during the summer and didn't overtake the White sox until last week.
The team came into the year with very high expectations after signing first baseman Prince Fielder to a $214 million contract in the offseason. Manager Jim Leyland's job might not have been secure if the team didn't make the playoffs.
"It was a rocky road, it was a tough season, but in this business, you have to be able to take some hits," Leyland said. "This isn't a place for the faint-hearted. Hell, we took a lot of punches, a lot of them justified, some of them maybe not. But hey, we can take a punch."
Cabrera's home run gave him 44 on the season, one more than Josh Hamilton. He now leads the league in home runs, RBIs with 137 and batting average, hitting .329 over Mike Trout from Los Angeles.
"He's unbelievable. He's a once-in-a-lifetime player," Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said. "I talked to him and he said, 'The Triple Crown is important, but it's not the most important thing. I want to win a championship.' "
Although the Tigers have the worst record of any of the AL playoff teams, they will open their first series at home on Saturday due to the new playoff format. They will play the division winner with the second-best record in the American League, while the number one seeded team will play the winner of the one-game, wild-card playoff.
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