When the Detroit Tigers were swept by the Seattle Mariners heading into the All-Star break, it was easy to shake off. Fresh off their own sweep of the Cleveland Guardians and a series victory over the Tampa Bay Rays that put them 14 games up in the AL Central, the Tigers’ first stumble into the break barely scratched the surface of the fanbase’s confidence in their ballclub. Then followed a series loss to the Rangers out of the break that led into a six-game losing streak against the Pirates and Blue Jays.

The Tigers briefly righted the ship against the Diamondbacks, but two more series losses to the Phillies and then a Twins team that just sold heavily at the deadline has the fear meter touching the red while the Guardians are 7-3 over their last 10 and have closed to within six games in the AL Central division. Now the Tigers open a home series against the mediocre Los Angeles Angels on Friday night in dire need of a convincing series victory.

The Tigers still have a divisional lead that would be considered big in any other year, but with Riley Greene in the worst funk of his career, and much of the bullpen in a freefall, it’s not easy to find confidence that this spiral into disaster can be reversed. The cavalry isn’t coming if it isn’t already here. Scott Harris found them some solid help at the deadline, but no one likely to just put the team on his back and carry them down the stretch and into the postseason. Once again, the onus is placed squarely on AJ Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter to try and turn things around.

Hinch as always remains focused on his own team and their issues rather than scoreboard watching, but there’s just no way around the fact that the Tigers are veering closer and closer to fumbling a nearly insurmountable lead, and now face a major test. The schedule only gets tougher in September, so the Tigers have about three weeks to right the ship, take advantage of some lesser teams, and push the Guardians and even the Royals out of the picture for good.

“We better worry about ourselves,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said after Wednesday’s loss, capping the team’s sixth series loss in its past seven. “I don’t care if you have a one-game lead or a 20-game lead, if you don’t play good baseball, I’m going to sit up here and tell you we got to be better.”

Bullpen magic is a necessity

The issue with the offense is pretty simple. Riley Greene will either get right or he won’t. Gleyber Torres forearm strain and recent, though much more shallow slump, will abate, or it won’t. I’ll dive into the offense’s issues shortly, but they’re pretty obvious and straightforward.

The main problem for the Detroit Tigers right now is that their bullpen is a mess, and even with Charlie Morton and Chris Paddack added to help the rotation, that unit doesn’t look as good as it did earlier in the season when you could hope for improvements from talented rookie Jackson Jobe and Reese Olson. Early on, I had the return of Sawyer Gipson-Long and perhaps Jose Urquidy, along with another development step from Troy Melton, as potential aces in the hole to support the rotation and bullpen in the second half.

Instead, with Olson and Jobe down and the bullpen struggling, Melton has been pressed into service as a reliever, and Gipson-Long and Urquidy are still working to get healthy and contribute.

After a pretty good start to the year, over the last 30 days, the Tigers’ bullpen ranks in the bottom five in the game in both ERA and FIP. They’re giving up the worst barrel percentage in baseball, even though their hard hit rate against is middle of the pack. By strikeout rate in that span, they’re 27th best, though about average in terms of walks allowed.

In fairness, the Tigers’ starting rotation hasn’t been that much better. Despite having Tarik Skubal leading the way, they hold a 4.63 ERA over the last 30 days. On the plus side, they were still 5th best by FIP at 3.73. The problem is that those numbers include four starts from Reese Olson in July before losing him, most likely for the rest of the regular season.

Of the two groups, though, it’s certainly easier to have confidence in the rotation.

They do have 46 games left, and seven of those games will be pitched by the reigning, and currently looking like the defending, AL Cy Young winner. They aren’t going to win every Skubal game, but Jack Flaherty, Casey Mize, Charlie Morton, and Chris Paddack should be enough to win the 23-25 games they likely need to win to ensure a division title.

If that doesn’t happen, the blame is probably going to fall most on the bullpen and possibly the offense.

Whether Jose Urquidy might be ready to help in September is unknown, though he’s looked pretty good in his first rehab appearances. There’s still a lengthy progression to build up his innings after Tommy John surgery. Sawyer Gipson-Long was erratic in his return from Tommy John, but is just about done with rehab from a neck strain and could well be one of the eight best options for the bullpen if the rotation does need an assist. Keider Montero has struggled in his sophomore season, but he’s still talented enough to hope that he could get you a decent start or two if needed.

Of the two groups, the rotation is in better shape, though not good shape, and has more obvious options to turn to for help down the stretch if the need arises. If any of those three start pitching well, they’re candidates to help in middle relief too.

As for the bullpen, once again, the burden is on AJ Hinch, Chris Fetter, and his coaching staff to perform another minor miracle.

Bullpens, and relievers more generally, are one of the more volatile assets in the game. Up one year, down the next. Good for a month, gas can for a month. It stood to reason that the pieced-together pen that carried the Tigers down the stretch last September and into the postseason wasn’t going to repeat the feat.

Unfortunately, none of Scott Harris’ reliever acquisitions in the offseason have really worked out. Tommy Kahnle was good for a few months, but has completely crumbled since. John Brebbia was a waste of money, though to a smaller degree than starter Alex Cobb. Hopes for returns to form from Alex Lange and Jason Foley are not panning out. Nor have relief prospects like Tyler Mattison, Tanner Kohlhepp, or Dylan Smith been able to stay healthy and take a big step forward.

The Tigers thought they were set in terms of left-handers in the offseason. Andrew Chafin’s minor league deal was the only major league-caliber lefty they added, and they declined to add him to the major league roster in the regular season. They still had Tyler Holton, Brant Hurter, and Sean Guenther at that point and added a minor league project arm in LHP Bailey Horn via cash trade with the Cardinals in mid-March, among a few other minor league deals for minor league lefties in recent months.

Horn has talent, and made his MLB debut for the Red Sox in 2024, but control problems have held him back. He actually pitched well in his brief look with the Tigers, and is currently rolling in Triple-A. Probably he is due for a look at some point down the stretch. He’s more of a power arm than either Hurter or Holton and his riding mid-90’s fourseamer might be what the doctor ordered.

Hurter has struggled with command quite a bit over the past month, while Holton just cannot keep the ball down and is suffering from a severe case of the long ball. His strikeout and walk numbers are just as good as they’ve been the past two seasons when he was one of the more valuable lefties in the game. The precision command that powered those seasons just hasn’t been as good this year, and with a low-powered toolkit of pitches he’s just too vulnerable up in the strike zone.

We can only assume the Tigers really like them some Bailey Horn, because they didn’t pursue a left-handed arm at the trade deadline. At least no substantive rumors of interest in such a starter or reliever ever emerged. They’ve picked up plenty of cheap veteran minor league lefties like Dietrich Enns and Nick Margevicius, but the magic dust to fix up any of these players just isn’t in evidence this season.

The current group might be enough to get them to October, but right now the idea of Holton, Hurter, and/or Horn trying to hold down the game’s top left-handed hitters in the postseason is a scary proposition. At this point, we’ll worry about that when they get there.

At least the back of the Tigers’ bullpen has been reinforced in recent weeks. Harris made a pretty good acquisition in right-hander Kyle Finnegan at the deadline. Will Vest has performed very well despite a pair of recent rough outings. Troy Melton is the best hope for another high-leverage arm they can lean on down the stretch. Melton has been a strike thrower as a starter and should translate well to relief with experience, and certainly has the stuff to get anyone out. The high-leverage portion of the Tigers’ bullpen is definitely in better shape with Finnegan and Melton in the mix.

The rest is anyone’s guess.

RHP Codi Heuer, acquired from the Rangers for cash considerations, is a fairly hard-throwing right-hander with major league experience who is working his way back after some injuries. After breaking into the majors with the White Sox in 2020, Heuer had Tommy John surgery in 2022 and then a fractured throwing elbow in 2023.

He’s still trying to find that last bit of command to earn him a regular major league role again, but he does strike out a good amount of hitters and generally keeps the ball in the park. It’s hard to know if he’ll be able to help the Tigers the rest of the way, but he’s certainly better than some of their other possibilities. Heuer does have options remaining and might stick in the organization beyond this season either way.

RHP Paul Sewald was a decent stash candidate acquired at the deadline as he works his way back from a shoulder injury. Even if he gets healthy, the home run tendencies in his game undercut the generally good strikeout rates he posts, but in middle relief, he could be serviceable in September/October.

RHP Brenan Hanifee has actually been one of the Tigers’ more effective relievers but was optioned to make way for new arrivals. Probably, he’ll be back from Triple-A Toledo as soon as eligible.

RHP Chase Lee had a nice little run, but he’s sort of Sewald-lite and was hit pretty hard whenever his command wasn’t really on point.

Any of Sawyer Gipson-Long, Keider Montero, and potentially Jose Urquidy in September, could be moved to shore up the pen down the stretch. Perhaps the spirit of Alex Cobb gives them a few innings in that capacity. There are at least a couple of relief candidates in Toledo but no one likely to be depended on in high-leverage situations. Whether Tommy Kahnle can get on track, or whether the Tigers can somehow perform some kind of full factory reset on Luke Jackson or Rafael Montero, the odds are not in their favor based on recent performance.

You can squint and see how a solid bullpen could be constructed out of this collection of parts, but it’s pretty difficult to conceive of a unit you can really have strong faith in, particularly in October. Outside of Vest and Finnegan, everything rides once again on Fetter and company’s ability to turn average stuff into above-average results, or to get a few of the guys with the most legit stuff tuned up and operating well as a unit out of the pen. That ability has been hard pressed this season, and despite the volume of waiver claims and minor league signings Harris has made this year, nothing has really worked out for long.

It’s on the coaches and players now

The Tigers have added enough help that the rotation should be roughly average beyond Skubal. They should be able to give the team a real chance to win most games. If they end up getting caught by the Guardians, the issue is more likely to be the bullpen and the offense.

On the latter score, there just isn’t much to be done. Expecting a big impact from Parker Meadows when he returns is probably fool’s gold though he was starting to swing the bat better in the days before his injury. And while Justyn-Henry Malloy and Jace Jung are swinging the bats pretty well for the Toledo Mud Hens, we’ve seen those shows already and there isn’t much to suggest either is primed to break out at the major league level. Hao-Yu Lee might be able to help hitting left-handed pitching if Andy Ibáñez and Jahmai Jones can’t get the job done. Hitting lefties has been a key weakness for the Tigers’ offense over the last month, but the fact is there just isn’t a savior coming unless he’s already on the roster.

Kerry Carpenter’s return has been a great boost, but unless Riley Greene can get right pretty quickly, this offense is not going to be running at its full potential.

As for the bullpen, evaluations need to be swift. The Tigers need to decide what they’ve got in Jackson and Montero. They can’t hang onto Tommy Kahnle much longer without a real reversal in fortunes either. The situation with the lefties is another serious problem unless Holton and Hurter can finally settle into a sustained groove. There are some decent options for reinforcements for middle relief in the minors, but the Tigers have already wasted a lot of time and a big chunk of their once enormous divisional lead figuring this out. Decisions have to be made quickly, and they can’t afford more experiments and mistakes.

For now, a trio of Finnegan, Vest and Melton is at least a solid bet to solidify the backend of the pen. That should be enough the rest of the way to win the division if the offense can recapture some of the discipline they had in the first half. Still, they could really use another pitcher or two to step up and provide a more stable bridge from the starters to the high-leverage arms in the pen.

In the postseason, when teams are more able to bring their best arms to bear on a higher percentage of innings? Eh, well we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Admittedly, it’s pretty hard to see this group carrying them very far in October as constructed. The Tigers are probably going to be a couple of high-end arms short in the postseason unless something changes for the better down the stretch, but other teams have similar issues and a lot can change in two months.

A lot can happen in October. For now, just handle your business and win the division. The longer this slump goes on, the more the pressure and fear build, and the harder it becomes to climb out of it. That climb has to start now.