Manger AJ Hinch kicks off clubhouse celebration: 'Somebody let the Tigers get hot'
Published in Baseball
The Tigers are running up quite the bar tab.
For the second time in six days, they were spraying bubbly and beer Wednesday night in Houston, where they swept the Astros with a 5-2 win in Game 2 at Minute Maid Park.
"When we started this series, everyone said we weren't playoff-tested," Tigers manager AJ Hinch told the team in the visitors' clubhouse, just as the celebration was getting underway.
"We just passed the biggest test of the year, to date, but there's more coming.
"I'm not sure who, but somebody let the Tigers get hot."
Hinch, of course, was giving a callback to one of the most memorable lines of the year from the Tigers, when catcher Jake Rogers told reporters: "Don't let the Tigers get hot."
That was back when the Tigers were a pipe dream of a playoff team. Now, they're heading on to Cleveland to face the Guardians in the American League Division Series, with that best-of-five series starting Saturday.
Wednesday's win gave the Tigers their first playoff series win since 2013, and snapped the Astros' streak of making the American League Championship Series at seven consecutive years.
Hinch managed the Astros from 2015-19, winning a World Series, albeit a tainted one, in 2017. He was fired after the 2019 season, as part of the fallout from the sign-stealing scandal. The Tigers hired him in 2021.
"Isn't baseball great?" Hinch said on the field with an ABC reporter after Wednesday's win. "It's unbelievable."
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