This is not how the Detroit Tigers drew it up at the beginning of the season. After leading the American League Central for the better part of the past five months, the Tigers’ playoff hopes and the outcome of the division come down to one weekend in Boston.
The Tigers’ pressure-packed series against the Red Sox, which began Friday with a walk-off defeat, arrives after a mostly disastrous three-game series in Cleveland, in which the Guardians took two of three from Detroit, capturing the all-important tiebreaker in the process. The Tigers were able to escape Cleveland with a win in the series finale, once again tying things up atop the division. They remain tied after Friday night as the Guardians lost their series opener to Texas.
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Overall, September has been a catastrophic month for Detroit as it has tried to stave off a historic collapse. At the beginning of this month, the AL Central was the division in which it was clearest who the winner would be.
Or we thought.
Detroit led Cleveland in the Central by a whopping 15.5 games on July 8. The Tigers led the division by 12.5 games on Aug. 25. But with their loss to Cleveland on Wednesday, Detroit trailed in the division for the first time in months.
At the same time, Cleveland has gone on an amazing run since the trade deadline, with a hot streak that has been both incredible and methodical. Since Aug. 25, the Guardians have gone 22-9, while Detroit is 8-20 in that span. That has put Cleveland on the verge of setting the record for the largest deficit ever overcome to win a division in MLB history.
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Beyond the tally of wins and losses, where has Detroit’s season gone so very wrong?
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To start, over the past month, Detroit’s offense has been almost nonexistent. Before their latest defeat Friday, the Tigers were 26th in baseball in runs scored across an 8-19 stretch, and the team’s most reliable bats, Kerry Carpenter and Riley Greene, had gone ice-cold.
Meanwhile, the starting pitching — which, beyond Cy Young front-runner Tarik Skubal, has been a question for the Tigers all season — has struggled along with the offense. You know what you’re going to get every five days from Skubal, but behind him, things haven’t been going well for a while. Detroit’s team ERA ranked 16th in baseball entering Friday, and that’s with Skubal’s 2.21 significantly lowering the collective average.
After having a double-digit division lead for most of the summer, the Tigers are in danger of crashing out of the postseason race entirely. (Taylor Wilhelm/Yahoo Sports)
At this point, Detroit’s moves — or lack thereof — at the trade deadline have come back to haunt them. In July, the Tigers acquired 41-year-old Charlie Morton, who has been one of the worst starters in baseball in the second half, leading to his release. They also added right-hander Chris Paddack from the Minnesota Twins, and he was moved to the bullpen after just six starts. Meanwhile, after an All-Star first half, Casey Mize has regressed, with a 5.17 second-half ERA.
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So with two games left to play, what can happen this weekend?
Since Cleveland holds the tiebreaker, the Tigers are essentially one game back. That means Detroit needs to win both remaining games at Fenway Park this weekend and Cleveland has to lose at least one more time in order to win the AL Central. If the Tigers have the same result as the Guardians, Cleveland will be the division winner.
The other scenario for the Tigers involves the Houston Astros, the only team who could still sneak into the postseason. The Astros remain one game back for the final wild-card spot after losing Friday night to the Los Angeles Angels, but it’s possibility that Houston could knock Detroit out entirely. The Astros need to win the final two games in Anaheim and have either the Guardians or Tigers drop their final two to avoid elimination.
Long story short, the Tigers should be in must-win mode over their final games, staring down the possibility of watching October baseball at home and making the worst kind of MLB history. Given the way things are lining up, it seems likely they’ll have Skubal on the mound in the regular-season finale with the stakes about as high as they could possibly be.
Buckle up, Detroit. It could be a long weekend.