( CNN ) -- The baseball playoffs were in full gear Thursday , with four potentially pivotal games to get teams one step closer to the World Series . Two teams moved on and two others stayed alive . The San Francisco Giants and the Detroit Tigers advanced to their respective league championship series while the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals forced winner-take-all showdowns Friday . Here 's a look at what happened around Major League Baseball on Thursday : . Detroit 6 , Oakland 0 . Justin Verlander pitched a complete game , allowing only four hits as the Tigers beat the A 's in the deciding game of an American League Division Series . The Tigers scored four times in the top of the seventh to break open a close game . Prince Fielder and Austin Jackson had RBI singles and Detroit scored twice more to take a 6-0 lead . Verlander , 17-8 during the regular season , threw 122 pitches in going all nine innings . The Tigers will play the winner of the Baltimore-New York series . Baltimore 2 , New York 1 . J.J. Hardy 's RBI double in the top of the 13th sent the Orioles and the Yankees to Game 5 of their series . Manny Machado doubled to lead off the inning and Hardy followed two batters later with a long fly over Yankees outfielder Ichiro Suzuki that made the score 2-1 . Baltimore had jumped to a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning , thanks to a Nate McLouth home run . But the Yankees tied it up the next frame , when Derek Jeter scored on a ground out by Robinson Cano . The Orioles ' win sets up Friday 's showdown . New York manager Joe Girardi has promised that he 'll be in the dugout then , as he has been all week , despite the death of his father on Saturday . Pedro Strop , the Orioles ' seventh pitcher of the night , pitched two scoreless innings to earn the win . David Phelps took the loss . One night after giving up a game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth , Jim Johnson earned a save . San Francisco 6 , Cincinnati 4 . Buster Posey hit a grand slam to lead the San Francisco Giants to a 6-4 National League Division Series-clinching victory Thursday over the Cincinnati Reds . Brandon Crawford and Angel Pagan also drove in runs as the West champion Giants defeated the Reds three games to two . The Giants became the first NL team to trail 0-2 in a division series before winning three consecutive games . Under Major League Baseball 's new playoff format , San Francisco had to win three road games to do so . Giants pitcher Matt Cain gave up three runs in 5 2/3 innings to earn the victory . Mat Latos took the loss . San Francisco next will play the winner of the St. Louis Cardinals-Washington Nationals series . SI : How did the Giants win three in a row ? Washington 2 , St. Louis 1 . Washington 's Jayson Werth hit a home run to lead off the bottom of the ninth , keeping the Nationals alive in their National League Division Series with a victory over the St. Louis Cardinals . The two teams will play the deciding contest of the five-game series Friday night . The Nationals used four pitchers who gave up just three hits while striking out 10 batters . Washington 's Drew Storen was the winning pitcher , while St. Louis ' Lance Lynn was the loser . Adam LaRoche homered for the Nationals in the second inning , while Carlos Beltran hit a sacrifice fly in the third for the Cardinals ' only run . SI : Werth quiets critics with epic at-bat .
NEW : Tigers shut out A 's to advance to Giants . NEW : Baltimore edges New York in 13 innings to force deciding game on Game 5 . Jayson Werth 's homer propels Nationals to win over Cardinals and into Game 5 . Giants become third Giants team to rally from a 13 -game deficit in a division series .