WATCH: Zach McKinstry Ties Up Game 4 for Detroit Tigers With Solo Shot
The Detroit Tigers are one win away from continuing their improbable run by making it to the American League Championship Series, but facing their division rival Cleveland Guardians, they knew it would be anything but easy to close them out.
As expected, the Guardians came out firing by getting traffic on the basepaths early before Reese Olson worked his way out of an early first inning jam by allowing just one run to get across.
That allowed the Tigers to breathe a sigh of relief with the deficit being something they have overcome throughout the past couple months.
They evened things up in the second inning when Trey Sweeney scored Colt Keith on a sacrifice fly, but despite loading up the bases with nobody out, it was Detroit's turn to not take advantage of a situation where they could have blown things open when Jake Rogers lined into a double play to end the frame.
In the playoffs, that can come back to haunt teams, and it seemed like that might have been the case when Jose Ramirez hit his first home run of the series in the top of the fifth inning to give Cleveland the lead.
But, Zach McKinstry immediately answered back with a solo shot of his own to tie things at two.
ZACH MCKINSTRY ANSWERS RIGHT BACK 🚀 #ALDS pic.twitter.com/ZXuYjghcnd
— MLB (@MLB) October 10, 2024
This was just the third at-bat for the 29-year-old during this series, getting a hit in the opening game before he was only used as a defensive sub in Game 2.
McKinstry didn't see the field at all in Game 3, but that didn't stop him from delivering for his team when his name was called on Thursday.
