CHICAGO – At times, he looks like a downed power line. Vibrating, sparking in the night. Flashes of eye-blinding energy. Pure, raw emotion.
Detroit Tigers third baseman Hao-Yu Lee rounded first base and looked back at the dugout. At his teammates. At the guys who didn’t give up. He bent over and screamed and balled his fists and jerked and zapped and whacked his chest and pointed and screamed some more after hitting a dramatic, two-run homer to tie it up, 8-all, in the eighth inning against the Chicago White Sox on Friday, Sept. 18.
Pure energy.
“I think some fans said some things to him and kind of fired him up,” Riley Greene said after the Tigers finished off an improbable, crazy 11-8 come-from-behind victoryat Rate Field. “For him to bring that
energy and showing it, it's awesome.”
Greene brought some energy of his own, crushing a two-run homer in the eighth inning to finish off the most improbable win you might ever see.
"That's a good win,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “I mean, we obviously made some mistakes early. We got behind in kind of a miserable first inning, but the game's not over. So, I think the good part of our club is that we just keep playing, keep playing, keep playing, and good things can happen.”
From ugly to beautiful
Friday's game started off just about as ugly as it can get. The Tigers had errors and walks and blunders, and it looked bleak. The White Sox raced to a 6-1 lead – before there were three outs – and then extended it to 8-2 in the third inning.
But you know what didn’t happen?
The Tigers didn’t give up. They kept fighting.
"During the first inning, I kind of botched the play I was supposed to finish,” Lee said through translator Peter Lin. “I was kind of beating myself up for it. But luckily, we kind of stayed in the game until I finally got one out. Then, just everything came out.”
Yes, it came out. Like a live wire.
So many guys had big games.
Kevin McGonigle went 2-for-5 with a walk, a run and four RBIs.
"Obviously, first inning didn't go the way we wanted it, but you know, all year we've been fighting," McGonigle said. "Playing all nine innings hard, trying to crawl back with whatever we have to do. A really good team win."
Let me pause right there and consider this: McGonigle came into this game as one of only two rookies in MLB history to post a rookie campaign with at least 94 runs, 26 doubles, 17 home runs, 65 RBIs and 92 walks. The other? Ted Williams in 1939. Yes, freakin' Ted Williams.
Then, McGonigle went out Friday and picked up two more hits and a walk.
"I don't know what to say about him other than he's incredible," Hinch said. "He's still learning. He's got a lot of room to grow and that's the scary part for the American League: He's not a full a finished product yet."
Tigers' 2027 core came through in clutch
Actually, all of them are still growing.
Eduardo Valencia, who caught another win, went 2-for-4 and scored three runs. Don’t look now, but he’s hitting .327 in his 34 games in the majors.
His fellow catcher, Dillon Dingler – who has been struggling since his All-Star appearance in mid-July – came up huge with an RBI single that gave the Tigers the lead.
“We know as a team that we're never out of it, no matter what the score is,” Greene said. “We're chipping away and just came back. A fun win.”
Let’s face it.
The Tigers' chances of making the playoffs are essentially none – slim isn't even entering the picture. This season is basically over.
But this team refuses to pack it in, even after playing sloppy for several days.
"Mistakes will happen," McGonigle said. "They've been happening a lot more recently than before. We definitely have to clean that up. But I think we did a good job of using that and building off that and just coming back and winning a baseball game."
Sure, they have made all kinds of mistakes over their three games entering Saturday. But it hasn’t crushed them. They haven’t collapsed.
Nope. They just keep playing.
"I don't think anyone's shocked about what happened," McGonigle said. "We come, we play hard, and you know we try to win the baseball game as a team every day. Today, was a beautiful game."
You know what I find fascinating?
The guys who came up so big in this game – Dingler, Greene, Lee and McGonigle – they are the future of this team.
And I’m starting to think Valencia is in there as well – obviously, if he can keep hitting like this.
Those guys, that’s who won this game. They are the core moving forward, really.
And they are the ones showing pure electricity, winning eight of their past 11 games.
A true spark at the end of a disappointing season.
Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on X @seideljeff
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers 2027 core already connecting in wild win over White Sox
