Cleveland Guardians at Detroit Tigers

Guardians first baseman Nathaniel Lowe saw shortstop Brayan Rocchio range to his right in the ninth inning on Wednesday to pursue a ground ball hit by Kevin McGonigle. As Lowe braced for Rocchio’s throw across the diamond, the first baseman knew he had to at least get some glove on it. Lowe smoothly dug Rocchio’s toss out of the dirt to secure the final out of closer Cade Smith’s four-out, 38-pitch save. More importantly, it secured a tense finish to the Guardians’ 6-4 win over the Tigers on Wednesday at Comerica Park, which snapped Cleveland’s three-game skid. “Every game's emotional with us. It really is,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “Rocchio made a heck of a play. Nate with a heck of a dig. Shout out to Cade.” Lowe snagging the final out was fitting. The Guardians’ season has been in danger of slipping away during a rotten stretch that sent them sliding downward in the American League postseason picture. In an extra and ironic wrinkle to its agony, Cleveland has been stacking up losses since it conducted a Trade Deadline buying spree last week. Before Lowe’s dig, fellow Deadline acquisitions Jo Adell and Foster Griffin were at the center of Wednesday’s action. Adell belted a go-ahead two-run homer off Tigers starter Framber Valdez in the fifth inning. It helped back Griffin’s solid second start in a Cleveland uniform. Over five innings, the lefty allowed three runs (one earned) on four hits and one walk with three strikeouts. “My record as a Guard is not that great,” Lowe said. “So it's nice to add to the win column and hopefully the boys get rolling.” The Guardians landed Adell, Griffin and Lowe before the 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline last Monday. Nothing has come easy for them since. Cleveland (59-62) is 2-6 since the Deadline, as part of a larger 8-16 stretch since the All-Star break. To be sure, the Guardians have been treading water going back farther. They entered Wednesday 24-35 since the calendar flipped to June, a month in which José Ramírez suffered a left hamate fracture. The ballclub did well to hold serve in Ramírez’s absence (15-15), but it has been trudging along for some time now. Wednesday was a reprieve. Adell hit his first home run with the Guardians on Tuesday, and he hit an 0-1 changeup from Valdez a Statcast-projected 385 feet to left field for a two-run shot the following night. “I know the boys have been grinding,” Adell said, “and I just showed up as a piece to help this train move along and to allow us to continue to play the level