The drama of the 2024 Major League Baseball postseason continued on Monday as the Detroit Tigers defeated the Cleveland Guardians by a score of 3-0.
After losing game 1 in blowout fashion, the Tigers bounced back on Monday with a hard-fought victory.
The game was scoreless headed into the 9th inning when Kerry Carpenter hit the biggest homerun of his career off of baseball’s best closer.
According to MLB on ‘X,’ Carpenter’s homerun was the hardest hit home run of his career.
Kerry Carpenter launched the hardest-hit homer of his career to create one of the biggest moments of the 2024 #Postseason 😤
(MLB x @GoogleCloud) pic.twitter.com/BWDSKiJ9HQ
— MLB (@MLB) October 8, 2024
Carpenter’s home run came off the bat at a whopping 110.8 miles per hour, which was the hardest-hit ball of his career.
The American League Division Series is now tied 1-1, and it is headed back to Detroit for game 3.
Carpenter had a productive season for the Tigers where he batted .284 with 18 home runs, 57 runs batted in, and a .932 on-base plus slugging percentage.
Not only did Carpenter hit the biggest homerun of his career, but he hit it off of Major League Baseball’s best closer.
Emmanual Clase had 47 saves for the Guardians in 2024 with a .061 earned run average with 66 strikeouts in 74.1 innings pitched.
Clase has been a shutdown pitcher all season, and the fact that Carpenter was able to take him deep in the most important at-bat of the season is almost, if not more, impressive than how hard he hit the ball.
The Tigers will look to take a series lead in game 3 on Wednesday at Comerica Park.
The Tigers are looking to make their first American League Championship Series appearance since 2013.
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