10 Best Rivalries in Detroit Sports History
By Zac Snyder
Detroit Tigers vs. Toronto Blue Jays
Before the formation of the AL Central in 1998, the Detroit Tigers made their home in the AL East. The old AL East had familiar rivals like the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees, but no team battled with the Tigers for supremacy like the Toronto Blue Jays did in the 1980s.
When the Tigers won the division as wire-to-wire champions in 1984, it was the Blue Jays who finished second (albeit 15 games back).
But the biggest division battle between these two rivals took place in the summer of 1987. The Tigers ended up topping the Blue Jays by two games, but their ultimate victory did not always appear inevitable.
Detroit dug themselves an 11 game hole early in May when they faltered to a 9-16 start. They would correct that course and catch fire but they were still down by three games when the calendar flipped to August.
Sensing they needed something extra to push them over the edge, the Tigers front office pulled the trigger on one of the more memorable trades in team history in sending (then) minor league also-ran John Smoltz to the Atlanta Braves for veteran starting pitcher Doyle Alexander.
Smoltz would debut in the major leagues the following season and kick off a hall of fame career, but at the time he was a 22nd round draft pick who was in the process of putting up a 5.00+ ERA in AA.
Alexander, on the other hand, was everything the Tigers wanted to be. The team won all 11 of his starts following the trade, including his final two of the season which came against those very Toronto Blue Jays. In those two games he pitched a total of 18.2 innings (pitching into the 11th inning of one of the starts) and allowed just four earned runs.
The Tigers won their final four meetings with Toronto that season, including a home series sweep on the final weekend (every game a one-run win) that turned a one-game deficit into a two-game lead and gave them the division crown.
Next: Number 7