Oakland, Calif. — With plastic up on the lockers, the Tigers' clubhouse was ready. Three, two, one, party.

But the shreds of it still on the hooks spoke of how quickly the stunning comeback occurred.

No celebration, no 3-1 victory.

Just a stunning 4-3 loss to the Oakland A's.

With bubbly on ice for the Tigers on Wednesday night, the Oakland A's uncorked a comeback at the expense of Jose Valverde.

At the expense of all the Tigers, actually.

Within three outs of advancing to their second consecutive American League Championship Series, the Tigers move on instead to a fifth and deciding game of their division series.

"That's why it's the greatest game of all," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "It looked like we were going to get it. We didn't do it. We didn't quite get the 27 outs.

"You get tested all the time in this game. This is a good test."

It looked like the Tigers were in control. Most of the night had gone their way. But the bottom of the ninth did not.

Josh Reddick began it with a single barely out of Omar Infante's reach at second.

Then came a couple of statement-making hits: A double off the wall in left by Josh Donaldson, putting runners at second and third, followed by Seth Smith's two-run double to the gap in right-center.

The A's now were guaranteed of at worst taking it to extra innings. But they were out for more. They were out to end it.

It didn't get done right away, though. With Smith at second, Valverde came within an out of keeping it tied.

But Coco Crisp, the home-run robber of Game 3, singled to right — and there probably would have been a play at the plate, with Avisail Garcia's cannon for an arm in right making the throw. But the ball got away from Garcia — and Smith scored uncontested.

If the plastic in the Tigers' clubhouse wasn't down already, it came down then. By the time, the crestfallen players got back to the clubhouse — as mentioned earlier, only shreds remained.

The plus of the situation is this: The Tigers tonight will have Justin Verlander on the mound, someone who truly believes that his team plays best when its back is against a wall.

Well, it's up against it now.

"This is the essence of being against the wall," Verlander said. "This is it. Tomorrow is another game we have to win."

Over in the other clubhouse, of course, was a former Tiger who knows both teams.

"Taking nothing away from the Tigers," said Brandon Inge, "there's a heart on this A's team the likes of which I've never anything like in my life."

But is facing Verlander too much of a mountain?

"With the way momentum works," said Inge, "it's the best thing that can happen for us — because they have everything to lose. They're a great ballclub, no question. But Game 5 eliminates a lot. Anything goes now."

The loss definitely was disappointing to the Tigers, but they didn't look devastated.

Heck, Valverde stood at his locker and answered every question asked of him, despite calling it the low point of his career.

It'll only be devastating if the Tigers lose Game 5.

They still have a chance, a good chance, of getting to the ALCS, but what a bump in the road this loss was.

"Obviously it's win or go home now," Verlander said.

Because the A's struck late instead of early, Game 4 was entirely different than Game 3.

There was no first-inning run for the A's to electrify the big Coliseum crowd. Nor was there a spectacular catch by Crisp to rob Prince Fielder of a home run.

If Crisp was going to catch Fielder's booming drive this time, he would have had to be sitting way up in the right-field stands — because that's where Fielder deposited A.J. Griffin's 0-2 pitch in the fourth inning for the Tigers' second run.

Their first was the product of a double-sacrifice-single combination in the third — Alex Avila getting it going with a drive to right, Infante moving him over and Austin Jackson singling him in.

An insurance run was desperately needed, though, and finally was scored when Garcia contributed an RBI pinch-hit single in the eighth.

It wasn't insurance enough.

For five innings, Max Scherzer was outstanding — starting off with strike after strike. Of the 18 batters he faced in through five innings, Scherzer threw a first-pitch strike to 15 of them.

With two outs in the fifth, however, Smith walked on a pitch that just missed the outside corner. Scherzer had been pinpoint until that point, but the walk cost him 10 extra pitches.

Four to Derek Norris the next batter, followed by six to Cliff Pennington.

The walk would also lead to Oakland's first scoring chance when Norris dinked a single into shallow right, advancing Smith to third with two outs

Undaunted, Scherzer struck out Pennington to end the threat. By then, however, he had thrown 75 pitches — the point at which he said he fatigued in his final regular-season start in Kansas City following the two injury interruptions he experienced in September.

As excellent as his five innings were, Scherzer was gone by the sixth after the A's cut the lead to a run.

"His velocity began to drop pretty good," Leyland said.

Capping a 10-pitch, six-foul at-bat, Crisp led off the sixth by reaching second on Fielder's error at first.

Then came Stephen Drew's RBI double to center — which he tried in vain to turn into an RBI triple, a colossal mistake.

From the moment Drew made the turn at second and kept on going to third, it looked like he was going to be out- and he was.

For the A's, it was a lost opportunity.

In the ninth, though, they found another.

tom.gage@detnews.com

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