Tigers end skid, beat A's 6-5

Brad Ausmus hasn't exactly had his team running smoothly in the last week, but it was his brand of baseball that got the Tigers a key victory Tuesday night in Oakland.

Detroit had fallen behind after yet another rough outing for the starting rotation, but Torii Hunter's seventh-inning homer tied the game before Detroit took the lead without a hit in the eighth.

With one out, J.D. Martinez drew a walk, sending Ausmus into motion. Rajai Davis was sent to first base to run for Martinez, while Nick Castellanos pinch hit for Don Kelly.

Everyone in the ballpark knew that Davis was going to try to steal second, but he never got a chance to try. Fernando Abad's first pitch got away from Athletics catcher Derek Norris -- a poor thrower who was obviously trying to focus on stopping Davis -- and the Tigers speedster jogged to second on the passed ball.

That put Davis into scoring position, meaning a base hit from Castellanos would tie the game. Davis, though, wasn't done with Abad and Norris. He noticed that they weren't paying much attention to him at second base, so he decided to steal third, but not in the way any other baserunner would do it. Instead of going on the pitch, Davis waited for Norris to lob the ball back to Abad, then took off.

Abad, whose career record was about to drop to 1-16, nonchalantly caught the ball near the front of the mound, never realizing that Davis was sprinting toward third.

"I was just trying to get 90 feet closer, because I knew that if I'm on third base with less than two outs, we've got a pretty good chance to score," Davis told FOX Sports Detroit's Trevor Thompson.

Ausmus has turned the Tigers into a team encouraged to take chances on the bases, but even he wasn't expecting Davis to take one that big.

"That's Raj just being Raj," he said with a chuckle. "He likes to wreak havoc on the bases, and he noticed the pitcher wasn't paying attention. He's got the green light, so he's free to do that, but I'll admit that my heart stopped when I saw the go-ahead running on a throw to the pitcher."

Castellanos made Abad even more uncomfortable by fouling off three two-strike pitches before drawing a walk to put runners on the corners. Oakland manager Bob Melvin brought in Luke Gregorson to try to get a double-play ball, and he succeeded to get Austin Jackson to hit a grounder to short, but Jackson easily beat the throw to first as Davis scored the go-ahead run.

Joba Chamberlain and Joe Nathan finished the game with two perfect innings of relief -- Nathan aided by a sprinting over-the-shoulder catch by Ian Kinsler -- and the Tigers walked away with just their second win in nine games.

"We certainly needed this one," Ausmus said. "It was a battle out there, because we weren't going to give and they weren't going to give in, but we got a couple big runs late in the game and our bullpen finished it off."