Mind-bending Jace Jung slide highlights Tigers' sweep of Royals (and Twins loss)

Going into the Tigers' series finale against the Royals, Detroit was looking for a sweep. In the opener, the Tigers overcame an early Bobby Witt grand slam to win it by one; in the second game, Casey Mize put on a nice (albeit short) show on the mound and only allowed one Royals run to the Tigers' three. With both wins, the Tigers moved just 1.5 games back of the Twins in the Wild Card chase, who split their first two games against the Guardians.

The finale was a Tarik Skubal day, and the Tigers are 19-10 in his starts, so the odds already looked good. All Skubal needed to do was be himself, and the Tigers lineup could figure out the rest.

Skubal pitched five innings, giving up three hits, a rare walk, and one earned run on a Yuli Gurriel single in the first. Jake Rogers promptly tied things up, and then the top of the third featured a highlight moment followed by an even more electrifying one.

Riley Greene hit a lead off homer to break the tie, and Spencer Torkelson followed with a walk. Jace Jung singled, Zach McKinstry lined out, and then Trey Sweeney smacked a double into right field past a diving Gurriel. Torkelson score easily but Jung, who was coming all the way home from first, looked like he wasn't going to beat the relay.

The ball went from Hunter Renfroe in right field to Maikel Garcia to Salvador Perez behind the plate. Perez put his glove out as Jung went in, right foot first, and twisted just under the tag. He ended up sitting in the dirt behind home plate, the home plate umpire called him safe, and Jung jumped to his feet with a roar toward the Tigers dugout.

Tigers complete their sweep of Royals with some thrilling acrobatics from Jace Jung

It's sort of a miracle that the Royals didn't challenge, because that one looked close. Perez certainly thought he had it, but if he glove did manage to touch Jung at all, that sneaky right foot that had slid right by him had gotten there before the tag. The throw had beat Jung but his awareness and athleticism had other plans.

Perez tacked on a second run for the Royals in the eighth against Brenan Hanifee, but otherwise Kansas City was outgunned, and the Tigers will head out to Baltimore to see the Orioles again feeling very good about themselves.

That same night, the Twins lost another to the Guardians, 5-4, in an extra-innings walk-off for Cleveland, allowing the Tigers to cut the Wild Card deficit down to just a half-game. The Twins still hold the tiebreaker because of their head-to-head record against the Tigers this season, but it may not matter if the two teams continue on their current trajectories.

The Tigers are wily and gritty, and they're doing everything they can to be this year's underdogs in the postseason. The Royals were supposed to present something of a challenge for them, sandwiched between two other challenging series against the Orioles, but with a first series win over Baltimore and a sweep in Kansas City, the Tigers are looking like nothing is impossible to overcome right now.