Trey Sweeney might’ve bought himself more time after game-changing HR in Tigers sweep

Trey Sweeney had been back down in Triple-A for all of four days before he was headed back to the majors. The demotion was easy enough to understand, and wassomething that Tigers fans had been calling for in recent weeks; he was batting .221 with a .594 OPS when he was sent down. But then Kerry Carpenter went onto the IL and, weirdly, it was Sweeney who got the call to replace him.

His first four games after coming back up were totally unremarkable. He got one hit during the Tigers' doubleheader against the Nationals, didn't get an at-bat after subbing in during the seventh in Detroit's opener against the Guardians, and then went hitless again the next day after replacing Gleyber Torres at second following a scary collision.

Sweeney struck out, walked, and flew out in his first three at-bats in the finale on Sunday, as the Tigers tried to cobble together a win behind Tarik Skubal's scoreless seven-inning masterclass. The Tigers scored in the top of the ninth on a wild pitch from Emmanuel Clase to tie the game, and then the bottom of the lineup arrived in extras.

Javy Báez singled on the first pitch he saw to put runners on the corners, and then it was Sweeney's turn. He hadn't hit a home run since May 12, but he saw just two pitches from Cade Smith — a ball, and then a fastball up in the zone that he cranked to left field to put the Tigers ahead and spark what would become a six-run inning.

Trey Sweeney's go-ahead three-run homer to help Tigers sweep Guardians has fans eating their words

Matt Vierling tacked on another run with a double to score Torres, then Riley Greene hit his 22nd homer of the season to put Detroit up 7-1. New reliever Carlos Hernández gave up a sac fly to Steven Kwan (a perpetual thorn in the Tigers' side), but there was nothing else the Guardians could do to try to retrieve a win. The Guardians are now on a 10-game losing streak, have fallen to fourth in the AL Central, and are 15.5 games behind the Tigers.

Sweeney desperately needed that hit — any consequential hit, really — even though the Tigers made it pretty clear that they still have some amount of faith in him, as they sent down Justyn-Henry Malloy after just two days after they recalled him.

It was a show of force by the Tigers, who would've been utterly embarrassed to lose that Skubal gem. Although the Dodgers and Astros are encroaching, Detroit once again stands alone as the best team in baseball.