The Tigers Can't Lose
After having a 0.2% chance to make the playoffs, Detroit is moving on to the ALDS
On August 11, 2024, the Detroit Tigers were 55-63 and 10 games out of a wild card spot. This gave them only a 0.2% chance to make the playoffs.
That Tigers team is not the same one as today.
Today’s Tigers rattled off a 33-13 record in the last quarter of the season to make the playoffs for the first time since 2014. A 4-1 win over the Chicago White Sox on September 27 clinched a chance to play baseball in October.
The 10 games they had to overcome was the most ever for a team that made the playoffs in the MLB’s Wild-Card Era. The only other team that far behind was the 1973 Mets — who won the NLCS and lost the World Series in seven games — after being eight games under .500, they appeared in the postseason.
Most of the Tigers have never sniffed October baseball, but one guy knows his way around the month. Manager A.J. Hinch has a history with the Astros and winning the World Series. He took his Houston team to a championship in 2017 and his last game coaching the team was in a Game 7 loss in the 2019 World Series.
Hinch was relieved of his duties as manager in January 2020, as he was suspended from Major League Baseball for his role in the Astros’ sign stealing scandal.
"I'm not proud of the story to get here," Hinch said. "I've owned up to that and I will continue to do that. I'm very sorry for how it all went down. But all I had was the next opportunity to try to make it better and try to do my part to make this happen as fast as possible for the Detroit Tigers."
Hinch has been managing the Tigers since 2021 after they fired Ron Gardenhire. Detroit has never gone over 78 wins and second in the AL Central in the three previous seasons.
There is something different about this team.
AL Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal is the player many believe held this team together throughout the season. Skubal clinched the pitching Triple Crown after leading pitchers in wins (18), ERA (2.39), and strikeouts (228). He is the first player to win this record since Shane Bieber in the shortened 2020 season and first since 2011 in a full season.
He pitched in Game 1 of the Wild Card series against the Astros and carried the momentum into the postseason. Skubal went 6.0 innings, allowing three hits and no runs, with six strikeouts. Additionally, he threw 73% of his pitches for strikes and issued just one walk. His stellar performance helped Detroit take a 3-1 win and put Houston on the ropes.
"Those guys swing early and often, put the ball in play," Skubal said. "You have to be relentless at throwing strikes and getting ahead. When you get behind, that's when the damage starts happening.”
So called “pitching chaos” as Hinch coined turned into batting chaos. In the top of the eighth, Andy Ibáñez stepped into the batters box to pinch hit. He was up against 5x All-Star and 3x NL Reliever of the Year, Josh Hader. Ibáñez worked into a 1-2 count before hitting a foul ball. On the next pitch he made good contact and saw the ball scream into the left field corner. Loaded bases turned into three runs and gave the Tigers a 5-2 lead with two outs in the inning.
Tyler Horton started the game on the mound. After pitching one inning with no hits on 30 pitches, he was replaced. For the rest of the afternoon Brenan Hanifee, Brant Hurter, Beau Brieske, Jackson Jobe, Sean Guenther, and Will Vest were given at most 1.2 innings to work with. They combined for five hits, two runs, five strikeouts, and three walks.
“With this team, it comes down to two things: Trust and belief,” Brieske said. “If you can trust you're being put in the right spots and you believe like the staff does, you believe that you're the guy for that job, then it just becomes pretty black and white.”
The last time Cleveland and Detroit faced off was July 30, the same day Jack Flaherty was traded to the Dodgers and threw the Tigers’ rotation into a mess. The Guardians won that summer game 5-0 to put Detroit five games under .500.
Both teams will now see each other in a best-of-five game series that starts on October 5.
The Tigers rely heavily on their bullpen, but the Guardians have the best in the major leagues. The combined ERA of 2.57 was the fourth lowest of any collection in the last 30 years, and this group threw 150 innings more than the ones ahead of them. Tim Herrin, Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, and Emmanuel Clase are the X-factors that can help Cleveland play late into October.
Clase only gave up only five earned runs in his 74 appearances this season. His cutter can reach up to 103 mph, but it steadies around 100 mph and his slider is unhittable for almost all batters.
Rookie manager Stephen Vogt, however, has major players in his lineup. Third baseman José Ramírez will finish top-six in AL MVP voting after ending just one home run shy of a 40/40 season. Steven Kwan flirted around .400 before a slow second-half and injury ended that promise. Josh Naylor and David Fry both made the All-Star Game, while Andrés Giménez finished 4.0 wins above replacement.
The Tigers need to attack Cleveland starters — such as Tanner Bibee, Ben Lively, and Gavin Williams — early, so their bullpen does not have a major factor in the game. Also, Detroit needs steady pitching from starters and #1 prospect Jackson Jobe — he only played through 0.1 innings after allowing two runs in Game 2.
But as manager A.J. Hinch said in the locker room in Minute Maid Park on Wednesday…
"I'm not sure who, but somebody let the Tigers get hot.”