Tigers, Gomez Play It Cool

Todd Jones is the closer for the Detroit Tigers, a veteran who is being paid $5.8 million this season to do what he did Wednesday night -- shrug off a hostile, towel-waving crowd and get slugger Frank Thomas to fly to center with the bases loaded to preserve an 8-5 win over the Oakland Athletics in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.

“But if I walk in Friday and I’m batting cleanup, I’d expect to get a hit,” Jones said after the Tigers took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, which shifts from McAfee Coliseum to Comerica Park for Game 3. “We just know when Jim Leyland puts nine guys out there, it’s the right nine. Whatever he does is cool with us.”

Leyland’s cool move Wednesday was more of a hunch. With Sean Casey sidelined by a calf injury, the Tigers manager wanted another left-handed bat in the lineup against A’s right-hander Esteban Loaiza.

So, he inserted seldom-used Alexis Gomez, a guy who wasn’t good enough to crack Kansas City’s lineup two years ago, a guy who was designated for assignment not once but twice this season by Detroit, in the designated hitter spot.

All Gomez did was hit a two-run single to key a four-run fourth inning and a two-run home run in the sixth, blazing that same path from obscurity to October stardom that no-names such as Al Weis (1969 New York Mets), Brian Doyle (1978 Yankees) and Geoff Blum (2005 Chicago White Sox) did before him.

“Well, I just thought that it might be a decent matchup,” Leyland said. “He’s got big-time power. Unfortunately, he shows most of it in batting practice. In fact, I told him that it’s a 5 p.m. game, and that’s when you hit most of your home runs normally, so I’m going to play you tonight. He came through pretty big.”

Gomez was touted in Kansas City as the next Carlos Beltran, but in eight seasons in the Royals organization, he played in 18 big league games. The Tigers claimed him off waivers after 2004, and Gomez, a 28-year-old outfielder from the Dominican Republic, spent two years bouncing between triple-A Toledo and Detroit.

The Tigers, taking note of what catcher Ivan Rodriguez called Gomez’s “500-foot home runs in batting practice,” thought he might make a nice addition to their playoff roster, so they promoted Gomez to the big leagues in late August, a move that paid huge dividends Wednesday.

Gomez overshadowed Oakland’s Milton Bradley, who hit two homers, two singles and drove in four runs; Tigers starter Justin Verlander, who gave up four runs and seven hits in 5 1/3 gritty innings; and Detroit reliever Fernando Rodney, who, with flame-throwing setup man Joel Zumaya unavailable because of forearm tightness, struck out the side in the eighth with pitches that hit 96, 98 and 98 mph.

“Today, they give me the biggest chance I’ve had in my life, my career,” said Gomez, who hit .272 with one homer and six RBIs in 103 at-bats this season. “I think I did my best for the team. I’ve been in the situation where I go down, I go up, but I never put my head down.”

Bradley, whose first-inning RBI single gave the A’s an early lead, had put a charge into the home crowd with a two-run homer in the third, giving Oakland a 3-1 lead, but Placido Polanco and Magglio Ordonez opened the top of the fourth with singles, and Rodriguez walked with one out to load the bases.

Craig Monroe singled to center for one run, and Gomez followed with a chopper toward the hole on the left side, a difficult play but one five-time Gold Glove third baseman Eric Chavez usually makes. Only this time, the ball caromed off Chavez’s glove and into shallow left-center for a two-run single that turned a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 Detroit lead.

“It was in a tough spot, but I should have had it,” Chavez said. “It was a do-or-die play, and I died.”

Monroe took third on the play and scored on Brandon Inge’s sacrifice fly for a 5-3 lead. Gomez followed Monroe’s sixth-inning double with a two-run homer to right, crushing a Loaiza changeup for a 7-3 lead.

Solo home runs by Chavez in the sixth and Bradley in the seventh pulled the A’s within 7-5, and after Jones struck out Marco Scutaro and Adam Melhuse to start the ninth, Jason Kendall, Mark Kotsay and Bradley singled to load the bases.

Up stepped Thomas, who had 39 home runs and 114 runs batted in this year but couldn’t put enough of his bat on a 1-and-1 outside fastball, flying meekly to center, leaving the A’s in a deep 2-0 hole.

“That was pretty cool,” Jones said of his dramatic ninth-inning showdown with Thomas. “But the first two outs were a whole lot more fun than the rest of the inning. I knew I had to make pitches, and I got lucky enough to make mine.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com