Tarik Skubal leads the Tigers past the Astros in the AL wild card opener

HOUSTON – Tarik Skubal continued his outstanding season with a sensational playoff debut and the Detroit Tigers defeated Framber Valdez early with a 3-1 victory over the Houston Astros in the American League Wild Card Series opener on Tuesday.

The Tigers, who swept the AL Division Series in their last playoff appearance in 2014, earned their first postseason win since Game 4 of the 2013 AL Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox.

Down 3-0 early in the ninth, Houston was trailing on Yainer Diaz's RBI single, and the bases were loaded when Jason Heyward hit a game-winning lineout off Beau Brieske.

Game 2 of the best-of-three series takes place on Wednesday in Houston.

Skubal, the AL's pitching Triple Crown winner, gave up just four singles and walked one in six innings. The only hard blow the Astros dealt him was himself – the left-hander was hit in the right wrist by Diaz's line drive in the second inning.

He became the first pitching Triple Crown winner to win his first postseason start in the same season since Sandy Koufax pitched a complete game with 15 strikeouts in a 5-2 win in Game 1 of the 1963 World Series at Yankee Stadium .

Yordan Alvarez, playing for the first time since spraining his right knee on Sept. 22, hit a double to Jason Foley in the top of the ninth inning. Pinch runner Zach Dezenzo advanced to third on Alex Bregman's infield single and Diaz hit a grounder to right for a single.

Jeremy Pena sacrificed, Brieske relieved and Victor Caratini flew briefly to the left. Chas McCormick walked to load the bases, but Brieske retired Heyward for the save.

The AL West champions suffered another playoff flop from Valdez, who went 0-3 in the postseason last year. Houston's star ranked third in the AL with a 2.91 ERA during the regular season, but allowed three runs and seven hits in just 4⅓ innings on Tuesday.

Detroit pounced on him in the second. Wenceel Perez singled out earlier, Spencer Torkelson walked and Parker Meadows grounded into a forceout that left runners on the corners.

Jake Rogers, Trey Sweeney and Matt Vierling hit consecutive RBI singles for a 3-0 lead.

The Tigers had a runner on third with two outs in the third when Peña made a diving catch at shortstop on Torkelson's liner.

It was a return to Houston for Detroit manager AJ Hinch, who led the Astros to a championship in 2017 and most recently made a postseason appearance in the Astros' loss in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series.

The following January, he was suspended for one year by Major League Baseball and fired the same day for his role in the Houston sign-stealing scandal.

After his suspension expired, he moved to the Tigers and led the team back to the postseason with a 31-13 regular season record.

Hinch improved to 5-0 in the opening postseason games of his managerial career, the second-most wins without a loss in postseason history, trailing only Earl Weaver's 6-0 mark.

The Astros had reached a franchise-record eighth consecutive postseason appearance and had won an MLB-record ten straight postseason openers. They played their 98th postseason game since 2017.

Information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press was used in this report.