Miguel Cabrera had four hits, including a homer during a five-run sixth inning, and the Detroit Tigers held off the Kansas City Royals 6-3 Monday night to clinch the AL Central title.

Gerald Laird added a bases-loaded double, Rick Porcello (10-12) pitched shutout ball into the sixth inning and Jhonny Peralta went deep off Bruce Chen (11-14) to help Detroit reach the postseason in consecutive years for the first time since 1934-35.

”We wanted to win this game. That was our goal, to win this one,” Cabrera said. ”We did it.”

After hanging over the dugout railing the entire ninth inning, the Tigers streamed onto the field and behind the pitchers’ mound to celebrate their accomplishment the moment Jose Valverde got Alcides Escobar to ground out to shortstop with a runner on second for his 35th save in 40 chances.

The Tigers (87-73) will have the worst record among AL division champions, which means they’ll open the playoffs Saturday at home against the division winner with the second-best mark.

Not that when and where matters much to Jim Leyland’s bunch.

They’re just glad to be back in the playoffs.

”It was a rocky road, it was a tough season, but in this business, you have to be able to take some hits,” Leyland said. ”This isn’t a place for the faint-hearted. Hell, we took a lot of punches, a lot of them justified, some of them maybe not. But hey, we can take a punch.”

After winning the division by 15 games last season and signing Prince Fielder in the offseason, the Tigers entered spring training with lofty expectations. But they got off to a surprisingly slow start and were below .500 in early July. They were still well behind Chicago early last month.

The White Sox faltered, though, and the Tigers took advantage.

”It wasn’t easy,” said Fielder, who also had four hits, ”but we got it done.”

Now, with Cabrera closing in on baseball’s first Triple Crown since 1967 and Justin Verlander in contention for a second straight Cy Young Award, Detroit is the hottest team in the majors.

Right-hander Anibal Sanchez has been terrific down the stretch, Fielder and Austin Jackson are having big years at the plate, and the shoddy fielding that could have forced the Tigers to sit home in October has improved to the point that they’ll be pressing on into the postseason.

”You get that kind of momentum, usually it ends up very good,” team owner Mike Ilitch said.

The improved fielding was never more evident than in the fifth inning Monday night, when the Royals had loaded the bases. Escobar hit a hard grounder just to the side of second base, and Omar Infante made a nice glove-flip to Peralta covering the bag to end the inning.

The play allowed the Tigers to cling to a 1-0 lead, provided by Peralta’s homer in the fifth inning, until they could tack on five more runs in the sixth.

Cabrera broke a tie with the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton for the major league lead in homers with his 44th, a solo shot to right, and two fielding mistakes by David Lough in center led to another run.

Laird’s bases-loaded double knocked Chen from the game, and effectively knocked the White Sox out of the playoffs, though they didn’t do much to help themselves down the stretch.

Chicago beat the Indians 11-0 Monday night for just its third win in 13 games.

Meanwhile, the Tigers have won seven of their last eight as they surged to the division crown, including five straight against the Royals, who have dropped eight of their last nine.

Porcello kept the Royals off the scoreboard until the sixth, when Alex Gordon’s homer to right field finally gave Kansas City some life. Leyland wasted no time lifting his right-hander, who’d done enough to end a string of six straight losses and pick up his first victory in nine starts.

Cabrera had singles in the fourth, seventh and ninth in addition to his homer in the sixth, pushing his AL-leading average to .329, ahead of the Angels’ Mike Trout and the Twins’ Joe Mauer. Cabrera also moved his astonishing RBI total to 137, by far the best in the majors.

Cabrera was only part of the party Monday night, though, slapping backs and exchanging high-fives with the rest of his teammates as Detroit locked up its place in the postseason.

He could be the center of the celebration when the regular season ends Wednesday night.

”He’s unbelievable. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime player,” Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said. ”I talked to him and he said, ‘The Triple Crown is important, but it’s not the most important thing. I want to win a championship.”’

— Associated Press —

Asdrubal Cabrera knew a fastball was coming.

He hit it for a grand slam.

Cabrera capped a 10-run fifth inning with his second career grand slam and the Cleveland Indians routed the Kansas City Royals 15-3 Sunday.

”It was a fastball and I was not surprised,” said Cabrera, who had three hits and scored three runs as Cleveland improved to 2-1 with interim manager Sandy Alomar Jr.

”They pitched me the same way every time this series,” Cabrera said. ”First pitch, curveball, then a changeup and then fastball. So I hit it.”

Zach McAllister (6-8) benefited from the Indians tying a season high in runs and hits, 19. It was their ninth double-digit hit total in 10 games. They’ve won six of them, including a 15-4 victory in Kansas City a week ago.

McAllister pitched five-hit ball over 6 2-3 innings, allowing three runs.

”It was nice to have all those runs,” said the right-hander, who won for the first time in nine starts since beating Boston on Aug. 11. The rookie started 4-1 with a 3.17 ERA in eight starts after being called up from Triple-A Columbus. Then he was part of Cleveland’s second-half struggles.

”It’s been a big learning year, both good and bad,” said McAllister, who has yielded three runs or fewer in 16 of 22 outings. ”Today, I didn’t have my best stuff, but got through it.”

The Indians are 5-2 after a disastrous 12-41 stretch dropped them out of the AL Central race and cost manager Manny Acta his job. General manager Chris Antonetti will interview Alomar and former Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona soon for the fulltime position and expects a few other candidates to be in the search process.

The 10-run inning was Cleveland’s first since doing it in Kansas City in a 19-1 win on May 16, 2011. The Indians had not scored 10 in an inning at home since an 11-run first inning against the Royals on Aug. 13, 2006.

Cleveland went 9 for 20 with runners in scoring position after stranding 20 men on base in a 7-6 loss in 14 innings on Saturday.

”That’s baseball,” Alomar said. ”We took what they gave us and kept the line moving, tried not to do too much.”

Royals starter Luke Hochevar (8-16) was tagged for nine runs over 4 2-3 innings.

”It got away in a hurry,” manager Ned Yost said after the Royals’ seventh loss in eight games. ”A 10-run fifth is not good for your business.”

Lou Marson’s two-out RBI single put Cleveland ahead 1-0 in the second.

Cleveland broke it open in the fifth. Shin-Soo Choo doubled to start the rally and later had a two-run single. Jason Kipnis and Jack Hannahan each had RBI doubles. Other runs scored on a forceout by Casey Kotchman and when Jason Donald was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.

Cabrera had a bunt single in the midst of the rally before connecting for his slam off lefty reliever Everett Teaford.

”The third baseman was playing back, so I took it,” Cabrera said of the bunt. ”I just wanted to get on base and keep it going.”

Hochevar dropped to 1-7 in 11 starts since beating the Indians on July 31. The right-hander gave up nine hits and three walks in his final start of a wildly inconsistent season. In 21 outings, he had a 2.88 ERA. In 11 other starts, he lasted only a total of 48 innings and had a 13.88 ERA.

Alex Gordon hit a two-run homer, his 13th, in the sixth for Kansas City. Tony Abreu’s RBI single made it 11-3 in the seventh.

Matt LaPorta had a two-run double in the Indians’ seventh and Cord Phelps a bases-loaded RBI single in the eighth when another run scored on a wild pitch by Louis Coleman.

— Associated Press —

Doug Fister was breezing along after striking out nine straight batters and setting an American League record.

Detroit led by four runs in the eighth inning — but for the 2012 Tigers, nothing has come easy.

The Tigers nearly wasted Fister’s dazzling streak, blowing a big lead late before beating Kansas City 5-4 on Thursday. They kept their advantage in the AL Central when Alex Avila drove home the winning run in the ninth with a bases-loaded grounder.

Detroit’s lead in the AL Central grew to two games when the slumping Chicago White Sox lost to Tampa Bay 3-2.

“Getting a win is big,” Avila said. “We have to be able to win tight games like this. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to get in the playoffs and go far in the playoffs.”

Detroit finished 50-31 at home this season — and will now try to wrap up the division on the road. The Tigers play three games at Minnesota, followed by a season-ending three-game series at Kansas City.

Fister came within one strikeout of matching Tom Seaver’s major league record of 10 in a row. He struck out Salvador Perez to end the top of the fourth, starting a streak that didn’t end until Perez grounded out to the shortstop on a two-strike pitch in the seventh.

“It’s crazy, to go through a whole lineup and strike everybody out,” Royals outfielder Jeff Francoeur said. “And I don’t think he threw more than four pitches to any of the batters.”

The AL record of eight consecutive strikeouts had been accomplished several times, most recently by Kansas City’s Blake Stein on June 17, 2001.

After Perez grounded out for the third out of the seventh, first baseman Prince Fielder put his arm around Fister as they headed back to the dugout.

“I said, `Congratulations, man. You made history.’ He was like, `What are you doing?” Fielder said. “He was locked in so it was kind of like, `Get away from me.’ I was like, `All right, they’ll tell you.”

At that point, Fister had retired 16 straight hitters and Detroit led 4-0 — but he was oblivious to the strikeout record.

“Honestly, I had no idea,” Fister said. “(Fielder) was yelling at me to step off during the inning, and I kind of looked at him. Normally, he’ll do that, to slow me down, if I’m getting too quick. … I thought that was kind of what he was doing there. He just said, `Hey, step off.’ I look at him, and he kept looking at me, and he said, `Aw, I’ll tell you later.”

Fister’s performance almost went for naught. The Royals scored three runs in the eighth, and Billy Butler tied it in the ninth with a solo homer off Joaquin Benoit (5-3).

Fielder led off the Detroit ninth with a chopper that went past the mound and charging shortstop Tony Abreu. The hefty slugger made it all the way to second for a double on a ball that only ended up a few feet beyond the infield.

Delmon Young was intentionally walked, and pinch-hitter Ramon Santiago bunted into a forceout at third, leaving runners at first and second. Kelvin Herrera replaced Tim Collins (5-4) on the mound and got Jhonny Peralta to hit what looked like a potential double play grounder to third, but Mike Moustakas misplayed it for his third error of the game — and Kansas City’s fifth.

Avila hit a full-count pitch to first baseman Brayan Pena, who made a diving stop and touched the bag, but had no play at home.

“Pena still made a great play on that one,” Fielder said. “Baseball is really hard because even if you’re good, you have to be a little lucky, too.”

Fister finished with 10 strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings. He allowed two earned runs and five hits.

Kansas City’s Luis Mendoza allowed two earned runs in seven innings.

Francoeur hit an RBI double in the eighth, Johnny Giavotella added an RBI groundout, and Abreu, pinch-hitting, drove in a run with a single to make it 4-3.

Detroit took a 4-0 lead thanks in part to four Kansas City errors in the first two innings.

Moustakas was charged with two errors on one grounder by Quintin Berry — one for mishandling it and another for a bad throw. Fielder drove in a run later in the first with a single, advancing to second on an error by left fielder Alex Gordon.

Young hit a sacrifice fly, and Gordon threw Fielder out at home on a single by Andy Dirks to end the inning.

Berry’s two-run triple in the second made it 4-0.

— Associated Press —