DETROIT — Miguel Cabrera and the Detroit Tigers are headed back to the same place they opened the season: Yankee Stadium.

Manager Manny Acta, right, argues with home plate umpire Dan Bellino after being ejected in the first inning yesterday. (AP photo.)

Miguel Cabrera singled and doubled, wrapping up the American League batting title in Detroit’s 5-4 win over the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday night. But that wasn’t enough to earn home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Less than an hour after the AL Central-champion Tigers won, they found out they would have to begin the postseason in New York on Friday night.

“It’s going to be fun,” catcher Alex Avila said. “I don’t think we really cared who we were playing. You know in the playoffs you’re going to play good teams.”

The Tigers could have hosted the wild card in the first round if AL West-champion Texas had lost to the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday. The Rangers won 3-1.

So now Detroit — which finished the season on a 30-9 tear — will take on the Yankees, who posted the best record in the American League. The Tigers opened the year by losing two of three at New York. They took three of four from the Yankees at home in early May.

Detroit is going to the postseason for the first time since 2006, when the Tigers beat New York in the first round en route to the World Series.

“They’ve got good players — that’s the bottom line,” Detroit right-hander Rick Porcello said. “If you make it anything more than that, then you’re psyching yourself out. They’re just like us. We’re a good baseball team. They’re a good baseball team.”

Cabrera finished the season hitting .344, six points ahead of Michael Young of Texas and Adrian Gonzalez of Boston.

Jhonny Peralta hit his 21st homer of the season off Vinnie Pestano (1-2) in the eighth inning to give the Tigers a 5-4 lead after Ryan Perry (2-0) allowed Cleveland to tie it in the top of the eighth.

Jose Valverde pitched the ninth to finish the regular season with 49 saves in 49 chances.

Cleveland manager Manny Acta was ejected in the first inning, enabling bench coach Tim Tolman to be the acting manager in his final game before moving to an undetermined role elsewhere in the organization. Tolman said before the game he has Parkinson’s disease.

Acta said the ejection wasn’t an attempt to let Tolman manage his finale.

“I would never make a mockery of a baseball game like that,” Acta said. “If I had wanted Tim to manage, I wouldn’t have gotten thrown out. I would have handed him the lineup cards and told him to manage. He didn’t manage the game anyway — I managed it from the tunnel. It was just like being in the penalty box.”

The Indians led 3-0, and starter Zach McAllister went five innings without allowing an earned run, but the bullpen couldn’t hold on.

Detroit took a 4-3 lead in the seventh when Wilson Betemit tripled and pinch-runner Danny Worth scored on a wild pitch. Cleveland tied it in the eighth when Perry allowed a double to Travis Hafner, a pair of walks and then a sacrifice fly by Jack Hannahan.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland said he had a piece of paper with all sorts of batting average scenarios on it, hinting he might pull Cabrera if he thought it would help him win the batting title. But Detroit needed him in there to try to win the game, and Cabrera did his part.

It was an enjoyable ending to the regular season for Cabrera, who was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving early in spring training. He led the American League in home runs in 2008 and RBIs last year. According to STATS, LLC, he’s one of three active players with a “career triple crown” — along with Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez.

“That’s hard to do,” Cabrera said. “I just thank God for giving me the opportunity to go out there every day.”

Porcello allowed three runs and five hits in six-plus innings.

Notes

• Leyland didn’t provide an update on the playoff roster.
• Detroit finished 15 games ahead of Cleveland, which clinched sole possession of second place in the AL Central with Chicago’s loss earlier in the day. There was an impromptu celebration in the Indians’ clubhouse when the White Sox lost.
• Asdrubal Cabrera was in Cleveland’s lineup after Acta said the previous day he wasn’t planning to play him the rest of the season. “He came in and said he wanted to play,” Acta said. “He wants to get out there and play the last game of the season and set the example for his teammates.”

ELYRIA — Three teenage girls were sent to the Detention Home last night after they attacked an Elyria woman.

The girls, ages 15, 16 and 17, are charged with aggravated menacing, assault and violating a protection order.

According to a police report, the girls showed up at the woman’s Parmely Avenue home about 9 p.m. with another girl, who the woman knew only by her first name, and five males.

The teenagers, who were carrying a baseball bat, picked up the 37-year-old woman’s address sign and slammed it into the back window of her van and threw a brick at her neighbor’s house, the report said. Neither window was broken.

According to the report, the girls were believed to be looking for someone inside the woman’s home.

When the woman wouldn’t let them in the home, one of the girls punched her in the face, and she threw a punch back to defend herself, the report said.

The girls then took turns swinging the bat at the woman, but none of them were able to hit her, according to the report. After that, they all jumped on her, and she was knocked to the ground, the report said.

The woman told police the teens were upset due to a court case involving her niece.

The woman’s sister said that at least three of the four girls had shown up at her house earlier in the evening.

About 6:20 p.m., they went to her home, in the 800 block of West Avenue, and kicked her fence and threw rocks at her home when she would not allow her daughter to go out and fight them, according to a separate police report.

DETROIT — Ubaldo Jimenez was acquired to help the Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers.

It hasn’t worked at all.

Starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez yesterday against the Detoit Tigers. (AP exchange.)

Monday, Jimenez allowed six runs in five innings as the Indians were routed 14-0 by Detroit in a game that means nothing to a pennant race that ended weeks ago.

Jimenez has faced Detroit four times since joining the Indians on July 31, losing three times. Including a start with the Rockies, he is 2-3 with a 6.35 ERA against the Tigers this season.

“Eventually, he’s going to have to figure them out,” Indians manager Manny Acta said. “We see them 18 times a year.”
This time, Jimenez allowed 12 baserunners, including four extra-base hits.

“I was getting into hitter’s counts and they were taking advantage,” he said. “That’s a powerful lineup, and they’ve got guys who can hurt you on every pitch.”

Detroit had considered trading for Jimenez as well, but decided the Rockies wanted too much and dealt for Doug Fister instead.

The impact of the decision was obvious Monday. Fister (11-13) didn’t allow a runner until Asdrubal Cabrera’s two-out single in the fourth, and the Indians didn’t get a runner into scoring position until Ezequiel Carrera reached second on a single and an error with one out in the eighth.

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By that point, the Tigers led 6-0, and they still had an eight-run eighth to come.

“He works quick, he’s got a heavy sinker and a cutter,” Indians catcher Lou Marson said. “We had nothing for him, to be honest.”

Detroit’s choice of Fister over Jimenez has looked brilliant for six weeks. He and Justin Verlander, who are scheduled to start the first two games of Detroit’s first-round playoff series, are now a combined 14-0 with a 1.61 ERA in 16 appearances since August 16.

“I’ve never had anything like that before,” Leyland said. “14-0? Never.”

Fister, who allowed three singles while striking out nine, has been even better than the Cy Young favorite in the stretch, going 7-0 with a 0.65 ERA in his last eight outings. Fister, who was picked up in a six-player deal with Seattle on July 30, has now gone 20 innings without walking a batter.

“His command is amazing,” said catcher Alex Avila, who drove in three runs. “It’s easy to catch him, because he throws so many strikes. He’s putting everything where he wants it right now. It feels great going into the playoffs with two of the best pitchers in baseball right now.”

Victor Martinez, who has been to the postseason with Cleveland and Boston, thinks this might be his best chance at winning a World Series.

“It’s definitely a great feeling to be going into the playoffs like this,” he said. “With those two guys pitching like this, the rest of our pitchers and our lineup, we’ve got a chance to do some great things.”

The Tigers took a 1-0 lead on Ryan Raburn’s RBI triple in the second, then scored three times in the third. With one out, Will Rhymes singled. Jimenez retired Don Kelly, but Dmitri Young and Miguel Cabrera singled to make it 2-0. Martinez walked, loading the bases, and Alex Avila hit a two-run double.

By that point, Martinez had given the Tigers a 5-0 lead with an RBI double in the fifth, and then scored Detroit’s sixth run on Avila’s base hit.

The Tigers put the game away with nine hits in the eighth, highlighted by a long 3-run homer by Young, another midseason acquistion. Detroit’s first seven batters of the inning got hits before Omir Santos, hitting for Avila, struck out.

Notable

• Third base umpire Manny Gonzalez was hit in the right shin by the barrel of Shelley Duncan’s broken bat on a fifth-inning groundout. Gonzalez was checked briefly by Tigers trainer Kevin Rand, but stayed in the game.
• Indians reliever Corey Kluber, making his third career appearance, hit Kelly and Young with back-to-back pitches in the sixth inning, and nearly hit Kelly again in the eighth.