CLEVELAND — Funny thing about baseball, what takes so long to build can be knocked down so quickly. Like in one inning or one swing.

The Tigers were sailing along with a 6-1 lead. They scored four, two-out runs in the first inning against lefty Logan Allen. Rookies Ben Malgeri and Max Clark both delivered two-run singles.

Spencer Torkelson lofted a rare opposite-field homer in the third. It was his second in two games, his 22nd overall and his third to right field all season.

And with Keider Montero on the mound, things felt secure.

They weren’t.

The Guardians scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth to tie the game and then walked it off in the bottom of the ninth, taking a 7-6 win in the first game of a doubleheader at Progressive Field. Storms delayed the start of the game 64 minutes.

Brayan Rocchio, whose grand slam tied the game, hit Drew Sommers' first pitch into the bleachers in left field. It's the 40th game this season the Tigers have lost after having a lead.

Montero didn’t have a good feel for his change-up. Normally, that’s not a deal-breaker for him. It’s his least-used pitch. He’s got other weapons he can go to. But not against the Guardians’ lineup he faced in Game 1, a lineup with eight left-handed hitters.

The change-up is his lefty neutralizer. He throws it 21% of the time to lefties, with good results (.130/.180/.217). To not have that pitch against the onslaught of lefties he faced Friday, well, he was pitching shorthanded, for sure.

And he got away with it for the first three innings. As the Tigers were building a 6-1 lead, he was leaning on his sinker, slider and knuckle-curve to get by. It caught up to him in the fourth.

He struck out right-handed hitting Jo Adell and before he could get another out, the Guardians had tied the game. The big blow was a grand slam home run by Brayan Rocchio, who lofted a knuckle-curve into the right-field seats.

Montero hasn’t had success with his knuckle-curve against lefties. They have hit five homers off it and came into the game slugging .667 against it.

Earlier in the inning, Angel Genao doubled off a slider and Travis Bazzana singled on one of the few change-ups Montero put in the strike zone.

In his four innings, Montero threw 10 change-ups, just two in the zone. And the Guardians weren’t chasing.

The game stayed even into the eighth, thanks to a couple of exceptional defensive plays by the Tigers in the seventh.

Chase DeLauter was on second base with one out and Jo Adell hit a ground ball to the left of shortstop Javier Baez. DeLauter broke for third and Baez, daringly, threw to third. The ball short-hopped Kevin McGonigle, but he deftly picked it and applied the tag.

Next hitter, Nathanial Lowe, hit a sinking liner to center. Clark charged and made a slick sliding catch, the ball hitting in the heel of his glove. The Guardians challenged. It looked like the ball might’ve been trapped by the ground when Clark rolled over.

After a lengthy review, it was ruled “call stands.” Which means there wasn’t sufficient evidence to overturn.

Clark, who had three doubles on Wednesday, contributed three singles, two RBIs and a stolen base Friday.

Tigers relievers Tyler Holton (two innings) and Tyler Kinley put up zeros from the fifth through the seventh.

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