DETROIT — Jose Ramírez became the second player to get intentionally walked three times and have three hits in a game since Major League Baseball began tracking free passes in 1955, and the Cleveland Guardians held on to beat the Detroit Tigers 9-8 in 10 innings Tuesday night.
“He got some pitches to hit, and he didn’t miss them,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.
Ramírez joined Paul Goldschmidt, who pulled off the feat for Arizona against Milwaukee in 2015, according to Sportradar. Ramirez is also the first to have three intentional walks in a game since San Diego’s Jake Cronenworth did it nearly three years ago, according to Sportradar.
“That tells you what I think about Ramírez,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said.
Steven Kwan, who is No. 1 in the majors with a .363 batting average, led off the 10th with his third hit of the game.
Josh Naylor followed with a tiebreaking single for his fourth RBIs. Brayan Rocchio added a sacrifice fly, scoring Kwan, in the extra inning for the AL Central-leading Guardians, who blew a 6-0 lead early in the game.
“Kwanny getting the base hit, that’s what got the inning going,” Vogt said.
Scott Barlow (3-3) gave up a walk in the ninth for the win and Emmanuel Clase closed the game for his 28th save in 31 chances.
Clase gave up Carson Kelly‘s sacrifice fly, scoring the automatic runner who had advanced on a groundout, and two straight singles before Justyn-Henry Malloy hit a game-ending fly.
“I’m incredibly proud of this group,” Hinch said. “We had a hole early, and the hole got bigger, and we kept chipping away.”
Will Vest (1-3) took the loss after giving up two runs — one earned — on three hits and a walk over 1⅓ innings.
The Guardians generated plenty of offense a day after getting shut out in the series opener, but their pitching pushed the game to an extra inning.
Rookie Angel Martinez and Naylor hit homers in a three-run first. Ramírez had an RBI single with one of his three hits in a three-run third.
Both starting pitchers gave up six runs on seven hits with Cleveland roughing up Kenta Maeda early, and the Tigers getting to Ben Lively late in his outing.
Maeda, who gave up three runs on four hits in his first 14 pitches, lasted just 2⅔ innings to spoil a night in which he joined Yu Darvish and Hideo Nomo as the three major leaguers born in Japan with 1,000 strikeouts.
“Nothing really is going right at this point,” said Maeda, who gave up nine runs on nine hits and three walks in his previous start. “I’m causing too much trouble to the team, and I feel sorry about that.”
Lively started relatively strong, but gave up Colt Keith‘s two-run home run in the third and Gio Urshela‘s three-run homer in the sixth.
Nick Sandlin entered in relief of Lively and gave up a game-tying homer to Malloy, a rookie, who has cleared the fences five times in 28 games.