A few hours before a game 10 years in the making, Riley Greene noted he hit unusual mid-morning traffic on his drive downtown. A.J. Hinch said the "buzz around the ballpark, the energy, it has a different feel. The coolness of the air means it's not the middle of the summer."
"And from pitch one," said Hinch, "these fans in Detroit are going to be rowdy. Our players are looking forward to it, I'm looking forward to it. Wearing the Old English D, the white uniform, playing at home with 40-plus thousand fans screaming their heads off for us, and it's October? Can you get any better than that?"
You cannot, as it turns out.
The atmosphere, Hinch said after the Tigers' 3-0 win over the Guardians in Game 3 of the ALDS, "was second to none."
"Electric," said Spencer Torkelson, who ripped an RBI double in the sixth for his first hit of the playoffs. "You knew it was coming. You knew that they were going to show up and be loud, and they didn't disappoint."
The announced attendance of 44,885 marked the largest postseason crowd in the history of Comerica Park, which hadn't hosted a playoff game since 2014. Waving rally towels that turned the stands into a swirling sea of orange, the fans released a decade's worth of caged joy. Unleashed, the Tigers are calling this playoff run. Taking it all in from center field, Parker Meadows said he "got chills throughout the game."
"Unbelievable," he said. "Blessed to be out there."
Meadows singled to lead off the first and came around to score to put the Tigers in front. He also took a hit away from Jose Ramirez and a potential run off the board for Cleveland with a running grab in the fifth, for which the fans held their breath and then roared.
"Momentum's huge in this game and we were able to keep it. Shoutout to the crowd, shoutout to the city of Detroit for showing out," said Meadows. "That was fun."
Matt Vierling, who played in the World Series in 2022 with the Phillies, said the environment met his expectations "and maybe even then some." He felt the fans from player introduction to the final pitch, and even during lulls in the action. "It really lived up to it, and I can imagine as we keep going how much louder this place will keep getting," Vierling said.
The fans sang deliriously along during the seventh inning stretch to Don't Stop Believin', which is exactly what these Tigers have done for the last two months, and belted out that irrepressible lyric -- Born and Raised in South Detroit. And between the final pitches of the game, they bellowed the tune to Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes, a band literally born in Detroit. The ensuing fireworks were the only thing that drowned them out.
Vierling drove home Jake Rogers on a sac fly for the Tigers' second run, and later made a leaping catch at third that ended a Guardians' rally and cranked up the decibels at Comerica. Rogers, the Tigers' longest-tenured player in Detroit, knows better than anyone in the clubhouse what it meant to see the stadium full.
"Oh, man," he said. "I've seen it empty. I have. ... Seeing those fans waving orange towels and making them happy is what we want to do as a team."
Late in the game, the video board showed a ranking done by The Athletic that placed the Comerica Park atmosphere last among the eight remaining playoff ballparks in terms of home field advantage. Rogers smiled and said, "I assume they did it because we hadn't been there in a while."
"But I don't think that's true," he said. "It was just as loud as Cleveland. And honestly, I think it was a little bit more -- I mean, Houston was loud, don't get me wrong -- but (innings) one through nine, it was awesome. (The fans) did everything we ever ask of them."
Recently, the Tigers have done everything ever asked of them. They have risen to each challenge, like rookie left-hander Brant Hurter who got credit for the win after taking the baton from starter Keider Montero and eventually handing it to Beau Brieske. One of several unheralded arms from Toledo propelling an almost-impossible run in Detroit, Hurter admitted he "would have been shocked" if you had told him in Triple-A this season that he'd be shining here in the playoffs.
"It didn't seem like it was going that way, on both sides, for the Tigers and how I wasn't throwing great," he said. "But nothing is off the table in baseball."
The Tigers have now shut out Cleveland for 20 straight innings, over which time they've used seven different pitchers. Hurter said he felt calm amidst the Tigers' typical pitching chaos and on a pressure-packed stage, "just because I knew (the fans) were on my side."
Brieske worked two clean innings before handing it off to Sean Guenther, who handed it off to Will Vest, who handed it off once and for all to Tyler Holton, because this is how the Tigers win on days that Tarik Skubal doesn't pitch. Wearing a blue tee with orange letters across the chest that said, The Tigers Hunt In October, and below that, Restore The Roar in '24, Brieske said, "We're having a lot of fun, and I'm pretty sure the fans are as well."
"You could tell they were starving for a game like this," said Vierling, "so to be able to bring a game home to these fans and then to win it was awesome."
They'll fill it up again on Thursday, with the Tigers a win away from playing for the pennant.