Can Detroit Tigers Continue Defying Odds, Overcoming One Fatal Flaw and Advancing?
The Detroit Tigers have been the best team in baseball for a few weeks.
They finished the regular season on a strong note, overcoming incredibly long odds to qualify for the postseason.
Their first opponent in the Wild Card round is the second-hottest team in the American League; the Houston Astros.
It is a matchup between two vastly different teams in terms of playoff experience.
The Astros are the gold standard of baseball, making the ALCS in seven straight years.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Tigers, who are made up of a young core that hasn’t seen a winning regular season, let alone a playoff appearance.
The ultimate underdogs, Detroit continued their hot streak in Game 1 of the series.
Tarik Skubal shut Houston down through six innings, giving up only four hits and one walk to go along with six strikeouts. Will Vest and Tyler Holton completed two more perfect frames before things got stressful in the ninth.
Yordan Alvarez hit a leadoff double against Jason Foley, who gave up three hits and was charged with one earned run, recording only one out. But, Beau Brieske was able to work his way out of a jam, even after walking one, to close out the 3-1 game.
It was a huge victory for the Tigers, but it also highlighted the fatal flaw in their team that could come back to haunt them.
As Andy McCullough of The Athletic shared, they struggle to get people on base and hit home runs.
“If you wrote off the Tigers this summer, don’t be too hard on yourself. They wrote themselves off, too. A couple days after trading No. 2 starter Jack Flaherty, Detroit could boast only a 0.2 percent chance of reaching the postseason, according to FanGraphs. But a funny thing happened on the way to a middling season: Detroit caught fire and Minnesota collapsed. A.J. Hinch rode his bullpen hard to get to this point, with the team going 31-24 in one-run games. Can the magic continue into October? It will be tough if they don’t score. The Tigers finished the regular season with a teamwide .300 on-base percentage, tied with Miami for the second-worst mark in the sport. No Tiger besides Riley Greene hit more than 18 homers. The team will require an extra dose of grit to keep the party going,” he wrote.
Getting on base wasn’t an issue in Game 1, as they recorded 10 hits and drew six walks. Their three runs in the second inning off of singles from Jake Rogers, Trey Sweeney and Matt Vierling was all that was needed to win the opener.
Detroit will obviously take the win, but hey aren’t going to have Skubal pitching every night.
Can they overcome their offensive shortcomings in games that could be bullpen-heavy affairs?
They have defied the odds continually for weeks, so betting against them right now likely isn’t a good idea as they keep getting the job done despite their flaws.
Kenneth Teape is an alumnus of SUNY Old Westbury and graduated in 2013 with an Honors Degree in Media Communications with a focus on print journalism. During his time at Old Westbury, he worked for the school newspaper and several online publications, such as Knicks Now, the official website of the New York Knicks, and a self-made website with fellow students, Gotham City Sports News. Kenneth has also been a site expert at Empire Writes Back, Musket Fire, and Lake Show Life within the FanSided Network. He was a contributor to HoopsHabit, with work featured on Bleacher Report and Yardbarker. In addition to his work here, he is a reporter for both NBA Analysis Network and NFL Analysis Network, as well as a writer and editor for Packers Coverage. You can follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @teapester725, or reach him via email at teapester725@gmail.com.