DETROIT -- Welcome to the big leagues, Thad Weber.

Less than 24 hours after being called up from Triple-A Toledo, the 27-year-old right-hander found himself in the middle of a controversy that resulted in a storybook 3-2 loss for the Detroit Tigers.

With no outs and the bases loaded, Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington instructed Alberto Gonzalez to lay down a suicide squeeze bunt in the 11th inning.

Deadlocked at 2-all, Gonzalez did as he was told -- dropping a bunt that appeared to glance off his right leg before bouncing off the ground and rolling toward Weber.

Unsure whether the ball was ruled dead, Weber looked to first, but didn’t make a throw after Miguel Cabrera was late arriving to the bag.

Instead, Weber held onto the ball, the Rangers scored the go-ahead run and everyone was called safe.

The only problem? The run shouldn’t have counted, manager Jim Leyland argued.

Leyland immediately approached plate umpire Tim Welke and contended the ball had struck Gonzalez’s right knee off his bat while he was still in the batter’s box.

By rule, a foul ball should have been called, he said.

“The ball came down and hit him on the back knee. Clearly. Clearly. That’s not even a question,” Leylsand said. “The ball clearly hit him, and four guys happened to miss it.”

At the time, Welke saw it different.

“We called what we saw, and we didn't see him get hit,” he said.

Upon further review Welke admitted the ball did, indeed, hit Gonzalez after he and his crew watched the replay afterward.

But by that point, it was too late.

The Rangers took a 3-2 lead and Texas closer Joe Nathan pitched a scoreless 11th inning after Prince Fielder's game-ending fly ball was caught in foul territory near the warning track.

Despite the blown call, Tigers catcher Alex Avila came to Welke's defense.

"You can’t expect him to see it because I didn’t see it," Avila said. "But that’s why we have four umpires -- so they can get it right.

"It’s one of those deals where that’s the way it is. You have to swallow it and move on."

Making his third career start, left-hander Drew Smyly held the hot-hitting Rangers to one run on five hits in six innings.

Josh Hamilton, who had three of the club's nine hits, opened the scoring with a 370-foot moonshot in the first inning.

"He's just red hot right now -- he's an incredible hitter," Smyly said. "I was throwing everything I had at him and couldn't get him out."

It was the lone run the Rangers would score off Smyly, whose 1.12 ERA is tops among Detroit’s active starting pitchers.

"If he continues to pitch like he did, he’ll be a pretty good guy in the five-hole when we get (Doug) Fister back," Leyland said.

Brennan Boesch hit a tiebreaking homer off right-hander Colby Lewis in the sixth, to give Detroit a 2-1 lead and put Smyly in line for his first career win.

But Avila’s errant throw to catch a base-stealing Elvis Andrus in the eighth made it easy for Hamilton to score Andrus from third with a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 2-all.

"That was a tough break," Leyland said. "I actually think he could have had him if he just got it down."

For the second straight game, Ramon Santiago came up with a key hit after he belted a leadoff triple in the third and scored two batters later on Lewis’ wild pitch to score Detroit's first run. It was one of only eight Tigers hits Sunday.

"We didn’t really muster any threats, to be honest with you," Leyland said. "We just didn’t do much offensively.

He hit a game-winning, two-run single in Detroit’s 3-2 win Saturday night as part of the club’s day-night doubleheader against Texas.

Smyly found himself consistently working ahead in the count against batters, throwing an array of offspeed pitches to a free-swinging Texas offense that regularly swung at the first pitch.

"Up here, if you only have one pitch working, you're not going to do very good," Smyly said. "Throwing everything over the plate is the key to success."

--

Follow James Schmehl on Twitter: @jamesschmehl

.