The last week of the year for regular-season play, and this might end up being the most important week of the Tigers’ season. After losing nine of their last ten games and having been on something of a skid since the All-Star break, the Tigers are barely clinging to the top spot in the AL Central. They’ll have two series left to hang on and get into the postseason, and first they’ll have to get through the Guardians in Cleveland, after the Guardians just swept them last week.
It’s going to be an interesting final week, so let’s take a look at some of the news that’s starting it off.
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Detroit Tigers News
Following his especially poor performance last week, Charlie Morton’s tenure with the Tigers came to an end on Sunday as the team DFA’d him. It did not take long for a club that knows Morton well to scoop him up.
Of course, there’s some room for snark that Morton is joining the club he effectively “helped” win on Friday, but this feels much more like a single-day contract signing to allow Morton to retire with the club that drafted him, and where he effectively had the most success in his career. Morton’s acquisition at the trade deadline was a move by the Tigers to help bolster their pitching rotation, and it’s clear that the efforts the Tigers made this year to help their rotation have been… not great. Between Alex Cobb being permanently benched and Morton never quite rising to expectations, the Tigers will need to take a good hard look at the choices they make over the offseason. In the meantime, if they do make it to the postseason this year, AJ Hinch will need to use his magical bullpen planning to get as far as possible.
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It’s been a great season for the Tigers and fan attendance. Hopefully that will extend into the postseason…
MLB News
This is a crazy level of attendance.