Detroit ? The Detroit Tigers wasted an excellent opportunity to take command of the AL Central.

Minnesota’s loss lessened the blow.

Emil Brown and Paul Phillips led off the 11th inning with homers, and Jeff Keppinger followed with a two-run shot to lift the Kansas City Royals to a 9-7 victory over Detroit, which had a five-run lead early in the game and was up by one run in the ninth.

Detroit (95-65) remained tied with the Twins, who lost, 4-3, to Chicago, atop the AL Central with two games left, but the Tigers have the tiebreaker because they won the season series 11-8.

“When they lose, you want to take advantage of it,” said Todd Jones, who blew his fifth save in 42 opportunities. “But if you stumble, you hope they do, too.”

The Tigers had a chance to come back in the 11th when Joe Nelson loaded the bases with walks, but came away with just Carlos Guillen’s two-run single off Joel Peralta, who got Ivan Rodriguez to ground into a double play for his first career save.

“It is good to see them smiling,” said Kansas City interim manager Bill Doran, filling in for Buddy Bell. “We’ve had a lot of disappointments this year, but those guys have a lot of pride, and they aren’t going to stop.”

Curtis Granderson led off the game with a homer and hit another one in the third to spark a four-run inning to help the Tigers take a 5-0 lead, which was slowly whittled away by the suddenly scrappy Royals.

Kansas City catcher John Buck tags Detroit pinch runner Brent Clevlen out at home in the ninth inning. The Royals scored four runs in the 11th inning to break a 5-5 tie en route to a 9-7 victory.

“This says a lot about this ball club. We’ve lost 100 games, but we don’t want to lose 101,” Phillips said.

Mike Sweeney led off the ninth with a single against Jones. With two outs and the crowd on its feet, John Buck’s single put runners on the corners, and Joey Gathright’s RBI-single tied the game and quieted the fans.

“I haven’t blown too many, but this would’ve been a good one to nail down,” Jones said.

The Tigers had a good chance to win it in the bottom of the ninth when Sean Casey hit a one-out single, and pinch-runner Brent Clevlen advanced to third on Magglio Ordonez’s base hit. Zack Greinke (1-0) intentionally walked Guillen to load the bases, and the move worked because Rodriguez hit a short fly to center, and Gathright easily threw out Clevlen at home.