Earlier this summer, the Detroit Tigers were living large. Coming off their first playoff appearance since 2014, the Tigers raced out to the top of the American League Central standings. Tarik Skubal was a shoo-in for another Cy Young Award, J.K. Simmons was trolling rivals, and Ludacris was partying with the Tigers’ mascot.
It was quite a time to be alive, but things have changed. The Cleveland Guardians delivered a sweep to the Tigers this week, cutting their lead in the division down to 3.5 games with nine games to play. After Thursday’s game was decided by a late home run by Jose Ramírez, manager A.J. Hinch admitted a harsh truth that could leave the division and the Tigers’ postseason fate down to the wire.
“We got our a** kicked in pretty much every aspect, and they swept us,” Hinch told Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. “They’re going to get another shot at us, or we’re going to get another shot at them, whichever way you want to look at it. …These are tough times when you go through these stretches at the wrong time of the year. But it’s going to take the games to figure them out.”
Tigers Fighting for Playoff Positioning After Guardians Sweep
The Tigers’ postseason hopes are still in good shape as FanGraphs gives them a 96.5% chance to make the playoffs and a 91.2% chance to win the American League Central. But the issue is that those odds have decreased over the course of this week as Detroit entered the series against the Guardians with a 99.5% chance to make the playoffs and a 98.5% chance to win the division.
Part of the reason is that the Tigers and Guardians are two teams heading in opposite directions. Detroit held a season-high 14-game lead in the division and a 58-34 record on July 7. But the Tigers have slumped since then, going 27-34 while Cleveland has gone 40-23.
Things have gotten especially rough in September. Detroit ran its lead in the division up to 10 games with a 6-2 win over the New York Mets on Sept. 3, but has dropped eight of its past 12 games since that victory. With Cleveland winning 12 of its past 14 games since then, the lead in the division has been cut down to a strikeable distance with 10 games to go.
The Tigers can stiffarm the Guardians’ comeback efforts next week when they begin a three-game series in Cleveland. But that hides another concern when it comes to earning a first-round bye in the Wild Card round.
Detroit enters this weekend’s series with the Atlanta Braves holding a one-game lead on the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners for the No. 2 seed in the American League. If the Tigers stumble against a Braves team that has been making golf plans since August, Houston or Seattle could climb into that spot and force Detroit to play in a best-of-three Wild Card series instead of waiting for their opponent in the American League Divisional Series.
If the Tigers don’t take care of business against the Braves and the Guardians, they could wind up either fighting for the final playoff spot or home-field advantage in the Wild Card round to close the season.
There are some good things for the Tigers, including Skubal returning from an injury scare to allow one run over six innings during Thursday’s loss. But this is not a scenario that many Tigers fans envisioned when Jameson Williams and Jack White were showing up to the ballpark this summer.
Instead, the Tigers need to turn things around or risk fighting for their playoff lives as soon as next week.