KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Each win moves the Royals one step closer to the end of their long playoff drought, and Sunday was a big one.

Nori Aoki hit a two-run triple, and Kansas City beat the Detroit Tigers 5-2 to avoid a sweep in the weekend series between the AL Central’s top teams.

“Today’s game shows that we’re not going away,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “They have that feeling. They had that feeling this morning that they knew this was going to be a big game. They had a lot of confidence in themselves when they hit the field.”

Kansas City pulled within 1 1/2 games of Detroit for the top spot in the division. The Royals, looking for their first playoff appearance since they won the World Series in 1985, also stayed in position for a wild card.

The Tigers finish the season at home with seven games against Chicago and Minnesota.

“Hopefully we’ll come home and it’ll get loud,” Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter said. “It’s going to be fun. It shouldn’t be hard to get pumped up. If you don’t have that adrenaline now you’re not human. You should check your pulse.”

Aoki’s tiebreaking triple in the fourth scored Omar Infante and Mike Moustakas, making it 4-2 and chasing Rick Porcello from the game.

“It would have been nice to get two or three wins (against Detroit), but one win means we’re still in good position,” Aoki said. “We’re going to play our best and leave it all out on the road.”

Porcello (15-12) is 0-4 in his past five starts. He yielded nine hits and walked two in 3 1/3 innings.

Kansas City’s Jeremy Guthrie (12-11) pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the second and was pulled after 81 pitches and 5 1/3 innings, yielding one earned run.

The Royals’ dominant bullpen trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland held the Tigers scoreless after Guthrie exited.

Davis struck out two, bringing his total to 103, tying a Royals record for a reliever. Holland threw a perfect ninth for his 43rd save in 45 chances, and his first since Sept. 3.

“We really needed that victory,” Holland said.

Alex Gordon added an RBI double in the seventh for Kansas City, snapping an 0-for-14 slump.

“It was a big game, but this team’s not going anywhere,” Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said. “We’ve been fighting all season, we’re not going to take one bad series at the end and fold.”

Ian Kinsler hit his 16th homer in the third for the Tigers.

J.D. Martinez scored in the fourth on an error by Moustakas at third base. Moustakas has committed six errors in the past 12 games.

“It’s hard to sweep and it’s difficult in their ballpark,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. “I’m happy with two of three and now we’ll go home.”

FANS SHOW UP

All three games with the Tigers drew 37,000-plus, bringing the Royals’ home attendance to 1,915,482 for 81 dates. That’s the most fans the Royals have drawn since 1991.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Tigers: RHP Anibal Sanchez (right pectoral strain) pitched a three-inning simulated game. If he feels good Monday, he likely would be activated this week with a role to be determined.

Royals: LHP Danny Duffy, who has missed his previous two starts with a sore shoulder, will return to the rotation Monday, starting at Cleveland.

UP NEXT

Tigers: Rookie LHP Kyle Lobstein, who has walked 11 and struck out 18 in 27 2/3 innings, will start the series opener at home against the White Sox on Monday night.

Royals: Kansas City will need to rally quickly when it plays in Cleveland on Monday. The teams will resume their game that was suspended by rain Aug. 31 in Kansas City, with the Indians leading 4-2 going to the bottom of the 10th. The Royals and Cleveland will then play their regularly scheduled game.

— Associated Press —

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A rarely-used backup infielder who never even got into the game made the play of the day for the Detroit Tigers.

From the dugout, Hernan Perez spotted that a Kansas City runner failed to tag up. That set off a wild sequence Saturday that resulted in an out instead of the go-ahead score — plus a lot of discussion — as Detroit beat the Royals 3-2 to boost its AL Central lead.

Winning pitcher Max Scherzer said he’d reward the 23-year-old Perez, who spent most the year in the minors and has only three at-bats this season in the majors.

“Whatever he wants — dinner, lunch, breakfast, drinks, you name it,” Scherzer said. “That’s a one-in-a-million play. It’s unbelievable that we had someone on the bench be astute enough to see that.”

Joe Nathan escaped a ninth-inning jam as the Tigers increased their edge to 2½ games over the Royals.

Kansas City leads by a half-game for the second wild-card spot over Seattle, which lost to Houston later Saturday.

Detroit, seeking its fourth straight division title, has won 13 of 18 against the Royals this year, including eight of nine at Kauffman Stadium.

It was 1-all in the Royals sixth when things got crazy.

With Salvador Perez on third and Eric Hosmer on second with one out, Omar Infante lined out to second baseman Ian Kinsler. Trying for a double play, Kinsler threw to shortstop Eugenio Suarez and the ball sailed into left field.

Perez, who had been trying to get back to third after the catch, reversed course, headed home and appeared to score the tiebreaking run.

“I have to give credit where credit is due,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. “Hernan Perez was the guy who initially noticed it, sitting on the bench watching the game.”

“That’s how it all started,” he said.

Scherzer (17-5) got back on the mound and made an appeal throw to third, saying that Perez never tagged up. Third base umpire and crew chief Larry Vanover called Perez safe, prompting Ausmus to ask for video review challenge.

“You have to appeal. They called him safe on the appeal. I told Larry Vanover, ‘We’re appealing that Perez never went back and touched the bag.’ ”

“There was some discussion on whether that’s a challengeable play, because a tag-up on a fly ball is not. This wasn’t a case whether a guy left early. This was a missed base, which is challengeable,” he said.

The umpires checked with the replay booth in New York, and were told the play was indeed not reviewable.

On the videoboard, meanwhile, a replay was displayed that clearly showed Perez never tagged up. The umpires gathered again and reversed their original call, ruling Perez out and ending the inning.

“We started talking about what happened,” Vanover said in a statement. “We walked through the play. We took a consensus of the information, out of that crew consultation, we came up with the answer that he didn’t tag up.”

“Originally, I thought he was coming back, so I ruled safe on the appeal, but now after the crew consultation we took a consensus of the information.”

Added Vanover: “The crew was like 75 percent that you can’t review that, but we weren’t 1,000 percent. And in that situation, I didn’t want to not go to the headset and ask to review it when I could have. I wanted to make darn sure I didn’t mess that up.”

Perez said it was a confusing sequence.

“I don’t know what the rule is there in that situation. I never see something like that before. It’s never happened to me before,” he said.

Royals manager Ned Yost said the team wouldn’t contest the call any further.

“You can’t protest a judgment call,” Yost said.

Pinch-hitter Tyler Collins and Rajai Davis hit RBI singles in the seventh off James Shields (14-8).

Jarrod Dyson and Alcides Escobar singled with one out in the Royals ninth. They moved up on Nori Aoki’s groundout and were stranded on pinch-hitter Raul Ibanez’s grounder, giving Nathan his 33rd save in 40 tries.

Torii Hunter opened the Tigers’ fourth with his 17th home run. He also singled in the sixth for his sixth straight multihit game, the longest streak of his career.

Escobar hit an RBI single in the fifth and Hosmer singled home a run in the eighth.

Aoki, who was 13 for 16 in the past four games, put down sacrifice bunts in first and third innings, but the Royals failed to convert that into a run off Scherzer.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Tigers: RHP Anibal Sanchez, who has not pitched since Aug. 8 because of a right pectoral strain, will throw a simulated game Sunday. … C Alex Avila remains sidelined with concussion-like symptoms and has not played since Sunday.

Royals: LHP Danny Duffy, who has missed his past two starts with a sore shoulder, threw a bullpen session in the ninth inning Friday and is scheduled to rejoin the rotation Tuesday at Cleveland.

UP NEXT

Tigers: Sunday starter Rick Porcello is 2-1 with a 2.18 ERA in three starts this season against the Royals.

Royals: RHP Jeremy Guthrie gave up eight runs, six earned, on 10 hits and one walk in 2 2/3 innings, his shortest outing of the season, in a Sept. 8 start at Detroit.

— Associated Press —