DETROIT -- Tigers manager Alan Trammell didn't want to dwell on missed opportunities Tuesday. Fortunately for him, those missed opportunities didn't include Rondell White and his Pilates.

Before Tuesday's game, injured closer Troy Percival asked White if he'd been doing his Pilates exercises, something they'd started doing as a group during Spring Training. White hadn't been doing them in two weeks. Percival pointed out that White had been hitting when he was doing them, but the slugger entered Tuesday hitting .209 in May with two extra-base hits and two RBIs.

"So I started doing them right before the game," said White, who completed his 3-for-6 night with an 11th-inning RBI single off the left-field wall to earn the Tigers a 4-3 win over the Devil Rays. "I've got to keep them now."

Good-luck charm or not, Trammell might just start making sure of it.

"You know what? We found a way to get it done," said Trammell, whose team has rebounded from its early spate of one-run losses by winning its last three one-run contests. "We deserve a little credit for that. I'll take it. We'll take it, and we'll move on to another ballgame tomorrow. You can say all you want. We got a win. That's it."

The Tigers set a season high with 13 strikeouts for the game and left 15 runners on base, including the bases loaded with one out in the sixth, thanks to back-to-back strikeouts. They also stranded runners at the corners with no outs in the 10th. But again, pitching kept them in the game long enough to finally capitalize.

"It was a good game," said Carlos Pena, who struck out with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth but scored the game-tying run in the ninth. "When you look at the opportunities we had, maybe we should've won the game sooner. But a lot of times in baseball, things don't happen the way you envision them."

About all White envisioned about this night was the first pitch he'd see for the game-winning hit. Playing in front of his parents, he was the lead runner stranded in the 10th following a leadoff triple. Even though his bat shattered upon contact, the ball went to the right-field corner, giving White a chance to test Alex Sanchez.

"I was thinking double," said White, who did a double-take when he saw third base coach Juan Samuel waving him to third. "I tried to turn it up a notch, and I kind of slid in [to avoid the tag]. We started laughing like, 'I'm glad I got in there.'"

A fielder's choice and a popout erased the sacrifice fly opportunity, allowing Sanchez's running start on Nook Logan's drive to right field to end the threat.

An inning later, White was on the other end of the scoring opportunity. Brandon Inge lined a leadoff single to left off Travis Harper (0-2) and advanced to second when the ball bounced off left fielder Carl Crawford's glove for an error. Ramon Martinez, who entered the game an inning earlier, when Carlos Guillen left with right knee soreness, sacrificed Inge over to third following an intentional walk to Ivan Rodriguez.

With first base open and Dmitri Young on deck, the Devil Rays chose to bring their outfielders in and pitch to White, who then belted the first pitch he saw off the base of the left-field fence.

"I figured they'd throw something offspeed," White said. "I guessed right. I figured if they threw a slider right at me, I was going to try to hit it. Things worked out."

He came a few feet short of his first career home run against the Devil Rays, the only team against which he has yet to homer in his career. He was deep enough, however, to end the game.

The Tigers' first comeback victory after trailing through eight innings also ended Detroit's string of three straight one-run losses in games Jason Johnson starts. Johnson lasted eight innings for the second consecutive start, but left after Sanchez scored in the bottom of the seventh.

"One of these days, I'm going to get a win," the Tigers' right-hander said.

To get a quality outing out of this one was enough for Johnson. He didn't feel well with his stuff until the fifth inning, when he started getting his sinker down. He forced five consecutive groundouts from the fifth into the seventh, until Sanchez's one-out single. Sanchez went from first to third when Johnson's pickoff throw went wide of Pena at first base and into right field.

"I didn't even try to pick him off there," Johnson said. "I just wanted him to get dirty. That was probably the dumbest play."

Toby Hall promptly drove in Sanchez with a bouncer through the left side of a drawn-in infield. Sanchez reached base all four times he came to bat, though he erased himself as a potential insurance run on a caught stealing with Rodriguez behind the plate and Kyle Farnsworth pitching.

"Alex was kind of a pest tonight," Trammell said.

Pena led off the bottom half of the ninth inning with a four-pitch walk from Tampa Bay closer Danys Baez. An Omar Infante sacrifice moved Pena to second before Rodriguez lined a 2-strike, two-out pitch just over third baseman Alex Gonzalez and into short left field for an RBI single.

"They say baseball is a game of inches," Trammell said, "and that one made it by inches [over Gonzalez's glove]."

Pena, for one, had no doubt: "I was thinking fair or foul."

Among those cheering the comeback were Magglio Ordonez and Percival, both on the DL. Fortunately for White, Percival was thinking about his Pilates.

"I have to have a purpose here when I'm not playing," Percival said.