Tigers win appeal play, beat Royals to increase lead in AL Central

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A rarely-used backup infielder who never even got into the game made the play of the day for the Detroit Tigers.

From the dugout, Hernan Perez spotted that a Kansas City runner failed to tag up. That set off a wild sequence yesterday that resulted in an out instead of the go-ahead score as Detroit beat the Royals, 3-2.

Winning pitcher Max Scherzer said he'd reward the 23-year-old Perez, who spent most of the year in the minors. "Whatever he wants -- dinner, lunch, breakfast . . . you name it," Scherzer said. "That's a one-in-a-million play. It's unbelievable that we had someone on the bench be astute enough to see that."

Joe Nathan escaped a ninth-inning jam as the Tigers increased their edge to 21/2 games over the Royals. Kansas City remained a half-game behind the A's for the first wild card and a half-game ahead of the Mariners for the second wild card.

Detroit, seeking its fourth straight division title, has won 13 of 18 against the Royals this year, including eight of nine at Kauffman Stadium.

With the score tied at 1 in the sixth, Salvador Perez on third, Eric Hosmer on second and one out, Omar Infante lined out to second baseman Ian Kinsler. Trying for a double play, he threw to Eugenio Suarez and the ball sailed into leftfield. Perez, who had been trying to get back to third after the catch, reversed course, headed home and appeared to score the tiebreaking run.

Scherzer (17-5) got back on the mound and made an appeal throw to third, saying that Perez never tagged up. Third-base umpire and crew chief Larry Vanover called Perez safe, prompting Tigers manager Brad Ausmus to ask for a video review challenge.

"You have to appeal,'' he said. "They called him safe on the appeal. I told Larry Vanover, 'We're appealing that Perez never went back and touched the bag.' There was some discussion on whether that's a challengeable play, because a tag-up on a fly ball is not. This wasn't a case whether a guy left early. This was a missed base, which is challengeable."

The umpires checked with the replay booth in New York and were told the play indeed was not reviewable.

On the video board, meanwhile, a replay was displayed that clearly showed Perez never tagged up. The umpires gathered again and reversed their original call, ruling Perez out and ending the inning. "We started talking about what happened," Vanover said in a statement. "We walked through the play. We took a consensus of the information. Out of that crew consultation, we came up with the answer that he didn't tag up."

Said Vanover: "The crew was like 75 percent that you can't review that, but we weren't 1,000 percent. And in that situation, I didn't want to not go to the headset and ask to review it when I could have. I wanted to make darn sure I didn't mess that up."