Detroit Tigers left fielder Quintin Berry came through in the clutch for his team on Thursday, when his tenth inning hit up the middle plated Ramon Santiago with the game-winning run, as the Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1.
Baseball can be a grind some days and the hitters in Comerica Park had to remain mentally tough all day in the midst of a pitching duel where hits were scarce. Prior to ending the game, Berry was 0 for 4 on the day with two strikeouts, but he was able to find a pitch he could hit in the tenth inning and slapped it past the drawn-in infield with runners on the corners.
All's well that end's well and Berry made sure he took in the moment, celebrating wildly as his hit ended the game.
"I always wondered what that would feel like, and it is huge," he said. "I showed it, I was jumping around and acting crazy. You don't know what to do with yourself, so you are just flailing everything you have."
Berry knows that his .315 batting average is higher than he can expect - he's hitting an unsustainable .453 on balls in play - and he knows that a hot streak won't last forever.
"This is how baseball works," he said. "You can be doing everything right and lining balls at people. I'm just glad that things are rolling for me right now, and going the way they normally don't go.
"I'll take it. It feels really good."
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