Tigers drop rain-soaked, seesaw game to Reds on walk-off home run

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Apr 25, 2026

Published in Baseball

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CINCINNATI — If you left this game during the one-hour, 49-minute rain delay Friday night, you missed one wild seesaw ride.

The rains, which were threatening most of the night at Great American Ball Park, finally came at the end of the sixth inning with the Tigers up 5-3 and the Reds charging.

Down 5-0 in the fourth inning, the Reds scored seven unanswered runs. They came out of delay and scored four runs against Will Vest to take a 7-5 lead.

But the Tigers, undaunted, rallied back for three runs in the top of the eighth. Spencer Torkelson started the rally, hitting his third home run in three days, a 435-foot missile into the second deck in left. Then with two outs and Colt Keith on base, Kerry Carpenter launched his sixth homer of the season into the seats in right field.

Wait. It's not over. Nathaniel Lowe's second homer of the game came with two outs and runner on in the ninth off Kenley Jansen. The Reds beat the Tigers, 9-8.

The two-homer eighth was a gritty response to what had been an ugly bottom of the seventh.

Vest walked leadoff hitter Dane Myers, the former Tigers’ farmhand, on four pitches. He fell behind the next hitter, Matt McLain, 3-1, and served up a 419-foot home run to left-center to tie the game.

It was like déjà vu. The same scenario happened in the fifth inning with Tigers' lefty starter Framber Valdez pitching. He walked Myers and gave up a two-run homer to McLain.

Those were McLain’s first two dingers of the season.

The Reds didn’t stop scoring there, though. Elly De La Cruz singled before Vest got the next two outs before giving way to lefty Brant Hurter.

Hurter got lefty-swinging Lowe to hit a ground ball to second base, but Javier Báez’s throw to first was errant and De La Cruz scored. Tyler Stephenson followed with an RBI double.

It fell to right-hander Drew Anderson and Jansen to hold the skinny lead.

Anderson, who came in with a lofty 7.94 ERA, struck out two in a clean eighth inning. That was the Tigers first clean inning of the game.

Jansen had to face the heart of the Reds' order in the ninth. He got De La Cruz and Sal Stewart before allowing a broken-bat single to Spencer Steer. But Jansen couldn't retire Lowe, who had hit a 430-foot homer in the rain in the sixth before launching the walk-off, two-run shot to right-center.

But roll it back. At one point, before the deluge, the Tigers were in control of this game.

Riley Greene and Báez homered, helping to build the early lead. The Tigers have hit nine homers in the last three games.

For Greene, it was second homer in two days. Both were on breaking balls below the strike zone. He took a curveball to the opposite field and out on Thursday. On Friday, against lefty Andrew Abbott, he hoisted a sweeper 405 feet into the seats in left. The ball left his bat at 103.9 mph

He’s having a scorching month. He came in slashing .319/.434/.507 with a .941 OPS in April. He’s had two hits in each of his last three games.

As for Báez, something about hunting 3-0 heaters in Cincinnati. He torched a 3-0 fastball from Abbott leading off the third. It left his bat at 103 mph and flew 403 feet.

The last time he hit a 3-0 homer was also at Great American Ball Park. That was in 2020 against his old nemesis Amir Garrett.

Báez’s homer started a three-run inning, with Matt Vierling capping it with a two-run double. Rookie Kevin McGonigle singled, extending his on-base streak to an MLB-best 22 games, and scored from first on Vierling’s gapper.

And they had two golden chances to pad that 5-0 lead. They had two on and nobody out in the fifth and didn’t score. They loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth and came up empty.

That loomed ominous as the Reds started to chip away.