CLEVELAND — There should be no surprises. Not between these two teams. And certainly not at the point in the season.

But here was one, just in time to remind everyone in the heat of the moment — in the Tigers’ postseason opener, no less — that baseball is nothing if not unpredictable.

Playoff baseball? Doubly so.

So here was Zach McKinstry in the batter’s box Tuesday afternoon, in the seventh inning of Game 1 of this AL wild-card series, which had already turned into another one of those tension-headache tilts against division-rival Cleveland.

“Anyone new to the Tigers-Guardians, this is what they look like,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch laughed, the way only a winning manager can, after his team had escaped with a dramatic 2-1 victory at Progressive Field. “Like, every game.”

In this game, though, the unexpected twist was a surprising table-turn by the Tigers, who had runners on first and third with one out in a 1-1 game. And the way both starting pitchers were dealing — Tarik Skubal was dominant for Detroit, Gavin Williams grinding for the Guardians — it already felt like this one was in extra innings. Or headed there, at least.

But the Tigers had other ideas, it turned out. And McKinstry did, too, squaring around in the batter’s box on the first pitch that reliever Hunter Gaddis, who'd just come on in relief of Williams, threw his way. It was a change-up that the left-handed McKinstry bunted deftly toward first base, allowing Riley Greene to score the go-ahead run from third — first basemen Jhonkensy Noel had no play at home — and giving Skubal and the Tigers all the help they’d ultimately need.

“It was the perfect play,” Guardians manager Steven Vogt said. “He laid down an absolutely perfect bunt. If the safety squeeze works, you can't defend it.”

'Extreme need'

And while Vogt insisted he “knew it was coming,” his players would be forgiven if they were caught off guard. The Tigers had attempted just five sacrifice bunts all season — only Baltimore had fewer with four in the majors — and Hinch is steadfast in his belief that giving away free outs is bad business in this day and age of analytics-driven baseball.

Yet in that moment, and with Vogt turning the game over to his elite bullpen, it just felt like “one run was going to be a big deal,” Hinch said.

The Tigers had discussed just such a scenario in the pregame hitters' meeting, apparently, and McKinstry said the message was simple and direct: "I know we haven't done it all year, just make sure you're ready for the sign and ready to get it down."

He was ready. Greene was, too, springing into spring-training mode down the third-base line. And the manager?

“You can play for the big inning, which we often do,” Hinch said. “But we have that play in our playbook for moments like this, where it was an extreme need to take the lead with so few outs left.”

That’s what this time of year is really about, isn’t it? There are so few outs left for every team come playoff time, particularly in a short three-game series in the wild-card round. And especially for a team like the Tigers, who nearly found themselves on the outside looking in at all this playoff fun after leading the AL hit parade for much of the season.

The Guardians trailed the Tigers by 15.5 games in the AL Central in early July and still were 10.5 games back to start September. But they caught fire down the stretch — much like the Tigers did a year ago — and erased that deficit with a 20-7 run over the final month of the regular season. Detroit, meanwhile, took a second-half swoon and nearly turned it into a death spiral, going 7-17 in September and losing 13 of their final 16 games — including five of six to Cleveland over the last two weeks — to lose the division title as well as a first-round playoff bye.

Hinch's crew managed to salvage a wild-card berth in the final weekend, clinching it with a win Saturday night in Boston. But once the matchups were set the next day, Greene was among those laughing about the destination. The Guardians, again? Seriously?

“We’ve played Cleveland 50 times in the past four days,” he joked, though it only seemed like that after the Tigers struck out a mind-numbing 72 times against Cleveland pitching in those last six meetings.

Last year, the Tigers rolled into Cleveland riding a wave of good vibes, fresh off their own exhilarating late-season to clinch a playoff berth and a two-game sweep of the AL West champs in Houston. But the pitching chaos got KO’d in the opener here in Cleveland, as the Tigers found themselves in a 5-0 hole before they’d even recorded an out in the first inning.

Tuesday, it was the Tigers that came out swinging — literally.

Williams needed just two pitches to retire the first two batters in the top of the first as Parker Meadows and Gleyber Torres looked a little too eager to get things started. But then Kerry Carpenter lined a single that right fielder Johnathan Rodriguez misplayed badly to put Carpenter in scoring position. And Spencer Torkelson followed with a bloop single to left field that gave Skubal and the Tigers the early 1-0 lead with an unearned run.

“We gifted ‘em a run,” Vogt said.

Skubal, whose last two starts against Cleveland ended in a loss, wasn’t about to re-gift it, either.

He hit 100 mph on the radar gun twice in a 1-2-3 first inning, punctuating it with a strikeout of Tiger-killer Jose Ramirez. A single in the second was quickly erased by a double-play grounder. And Skubal, making his third start in 12 days, was through three innings in a cost-efficient 33 pitches.

Record day

But after a brief delay to start the fourth — caused by a foul ball that shattered a TV camera behind home plate — things started to unravel in an eerie reprise of Skubal’s last start here, when the Guardians won it with a three-run sixth where they didn’t hit a ball out of the infield.

This time, Angel Martinez reached on a tapper that got past the pitcher’s mound. Ramirez drew a walk. And after two more Skubal strikeouts, Gabriel Arias hit a blooper just over the mound that Skubal couldn’t snare with an over-the-shoulder catch. His throw home initially appeared to nab Ramirez at the plate, but a replay review overturned the call — "A little bit of Guard-ball turmoil there," Vogt called it — and the game was tied, 1-1.

The towel-waving crowd of 26,186 at Progressive Field was fully engaged, too. And they’d stay that way for the duration. But so would Skubal, who showed once again why he's the best pitcher in baseball, retiring 11 straight batters in one stretch, eight of them by strikeout.

The reigning AL Cy Young winner went over the 100-pitch mark only three times this season, topping out at 105 pitches in a late-July start in Texas. But after striking out the side in the seventh — the final punchout coming on a 101-mph sinker — he was at 96 pitches for the day. And to his surprise, there was no handshake waiting in the dugout from Hinch.

"You saw the seventh," Hinch explained later, shrugging.

Yet after notching his career-high 14th strikeout of the game to start the eighth — tying a 55-year-old franchise postseason record in the process — Skubal walked the Guardians’ No. 9 hitter, Austin Hedges. Then he had trouble stabbing a comebacker from Steven Kwan, spoiling a would-be double-play ball. And out came Hinch from the dugout, summoning Will Vest from the bullpen to get the final out.

More drama would follow in the ninth, of course. Because this is Cleveland and, as Hinch reminded everyone, "crazy stuff happens around the Guardians when you play them." Crazy stuff like Ramírez reaching on an infield single, and then advancing all the way to third on the play after an errant throw bounced of him into no-man's land here in a place the fans call "Believeland."

But Vest worked his way out of that jam by grabbing a comebacker off the bat of Kyle Manzardo and catching Ramirez in a rundown trying to score on the play. One pitch later, the final out was in the glove of Javier Báez, and the Tigers were spilling out of their dugout, celebrating a win.

One down, one to go. And if you’re keeping track of the calendar, now it’s officially October Baseball.

“Never a doubt,” said Hinch, smiling. “I don't think anyone had a doubt. … Everybody knew it would work out the way that it did.”

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