Detroit Tigers look forward to playoffs after 9-5 loss to Chicago White Sox
Kerry Carpenter hit a grand slam in the fifth inning, but the Chicago White Sox gave the playoff-bound Detroit Tigers too much to handle in the final game of the regular season.
Lenyn Sosa hit a three-run homer in the third inning and the record-breaking White Sox went on to beat the Tigers 9-5 on Sunday.
Detroit earned an American League wild card with a win over the White Sox on Friday night to end a decade-long playoff drought and will play at Houston on Tuesday in a best-of-three series, with the winner facing Cleveland in the AL Division Series.
"Baseball, it's going to take you places and sometimes to places you've been," said Hinch, who was fired by the Astros in 2020 after being suspended by Major League Baseball for the team's illicit use of electronics to steal signs during Houston's run to the 2017 World Series title and again in the 2018 season.
The Tigers finished 86-76, an eight-game improvement over last year, for their first winning season since 2016 with a surge that saw them win 31 of the last 46 games.
"We have all the confidence in the world," Tigers All-Star outfielder Riley Greene said. "We know we have what it takes. We're going to go there and show them what we got."
The White Sox wrapped up with 121 losses, breaking the post-1900 record of most losses held for more than a half-century by the 1962 New York Mets. The overall record for setbacks was set in 1899 by the Cleveland Spiders with a 20-134 record.
White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf called the season "embarrassing" and a "failure" and took responsibility in a letter issued to fans during the game.
Chicago won 41 games — 20 fewer than last season — after ending with five wins in six games for the team's best stretch of success since early May.
The White Sox fired manager Pedro Grifol in early August and promoted Grady Sizemore to interim manager.
"It would be so easy in a season like this to have a lot of negativity and a lot of back and forth and bickering and fighting, but there hasn't been any of that," Sizemore said. "They've stayed together as a family. That's what's made it fun for everybody even though we got the wins and losses."
Jonathan Cannon (5-10) allowed four runs on four hits and three walks over five innings when Chicago's season mercifully came to a close.
Kenta Maeda (3-7) gave up five runs on five hits and one walk over 4 2/3 innings in his latest shaky performance. The Tigers gave him a $24 million, two-year contract last November and the 36-year-old Japanese right-hander might not make the playoff roster.
Playing for pride, the White Sox showed some fight over the final week of the lost season.
Korey Lee hit an RBI single in the second, scoring Sosa, and Dominic Fletcher's sacrifice fly later in the inning put Chicago ahead 2-0. Sosa hit Maeda's 84-mph splitter over the left-field fence to clear the bases and put the White Sox up 5-0 in the third inning.
The Tigers drew 41,740 fans on Sunday and 1,858,295 for the season after 1,612,876 people attended games in 2023 at Comerica Park. Detroit had 128,108 fans attend the final series, its highest total for a three-game set since 2012.
The Tigers will play the Astros on the road in a three-game series, starting Tuesday.
"We're trying to go win a series so we could bring a home playoff game to Comerica," Hinch said.