Detroit Tigers Face a Crucial Series Against Baltimore Orioles
The Detroit Tigers wrapped up their series with the Colorado Rockies on Thursday unable to complete the sweep despite having their ace on the mound.
Thursday was a tough game for the Tigers, as they not only squandered an opportunity to potentially make up more ground in the Wild Card race, but they also saw Tarik Skubal leave the game earlier than expected after being hit by a comebacker in the sixth inning.
Fortunately, early reports are looking good that it wasn't anything serious.
With the loss to the Rockies, Detroit now sits 3.5 games behind the Minnesota Twins for the final spot in the playoffs. This is uncharted waters for this team, and A.J. Hinch is trying to make sure they aren’t pressing too much.
"We're all aware," manager A.J. Hinch said Tuesday to Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free Press. "We know that the stakes are high. I try to shield that as much as I can from a young team, but the reality is, we know what's going on."
Hinch, having experience managing a playoff team with the Houston Astros, is going to help the Tigers immensely down the stretch. He won a World Series with the Astros and knows what it takes to reach that level.
One of the encouraging things about the Tigers is their mindset.
This is a resilient team after bad losses who believes they can compete with anyone.
"We think we can win every night and then we come out and test ourselves against somebody different. We've talked about wanting to play important baseball. This is important baseball. This is what it looks like. But we need to focus on the next game," Hinch added.
Coming up next for Detroit is a massive series against the Baltimore Orioles who are currently the top-seeded Wild Card team in the AL.
Earning a series win in this matchup could them could help the Tigers close the gap.
The first two games of the series will be tough for Detroit, as the Orioles will have arguably their top two pitchers on the mound in Zach Eflin and Corbin Burnes. While Baltimore has a great record overall, they have been very mediocre of late, and it has actualy been the Tigers who have been playing better baseball.
If Detroit can find a way to win this series, they will give themselves a real shot in the American League race.
NICK ZIEGLER