Detroit Tigers Secure First .500 Or Better Season Since 2016 With Saturday Win
With yesterday's 6-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles in extra innings, the Detroit Tigers have secured their first season at .500 or better since 2016. Currently sitting at 81-74 with only seven games left, it is mathematically impossible for the Tigers to finish any worse than 81-81.
The surge has Detroit on the cusp of their first playoff appearance since 2014, the last of four consecutive AL Central titles. Detroit is half a game back of the Minnesota Twins for the final wild-card spot in the American League.
The second-half rally, where the Tigers have gone 34-24 (a .586 winning percentage), can be attributed to a few factors.
The first is their pitching: Despite sending pending free agent Jack Flaherty to the Los Angeles Dodgers at the trade deadline and losing starters Kenta Maeda (demoted to the bullpen) and Reese Olson (injured) within a two-week span in late July, the pitching staff has excelled. The starters aren't going very deep, throwing a league-lowest 190.1 innings in those fifty games, but the Tigers' arms as a whole have allowed the fewest runs in baseball during that stretch.
Lefty starter Tarik Skubal, the odds-on favorite for both the American League Cy Young award and a Triple Crown, has a lot to do with that. He is 17-4 with a 2.48 ERA on the season, putting up 6.1 WAR that is 2nd-best among all starters. He trails only Atlanta Braves lefty Chris Sale, who is the favorite to win the Cy Young and Triple Crown in the National League for his 18-3 record and 2.38 ERA.
But outside of Skubal, Detroit's been very efficient at manipulating their pitching staff to cover any sort of deficiencies.
No teams have used more "openers" than the Tigers, with five different relievers combining to lead off 24 different games since July 25th.
Helping all of those relievers and bullpen arms put up a league-lowest 181 runs down the stretch has been a much-improved defense.
Parker Meadows' August 3rd call-up to man centerfield has improved the outfield defense, while Matt Vierling's corresponding move from third base to corner outfield with the promotion of prospect Josh Jung to man the hot corner. Adding Trey Sweeney at shortstop, a prospect acquired from the Dodgers in the Flaherty deal, has helped cover up any defense lost by the injury to Javier Baez.
The offense has stepped up, as well.
Hitting a season-high 36 homers in July and following that with 29 more in August, the run-scoring has ticked up in the second half of the season.
This, combined with some good luck (the league's 2nd-lowest BABIP allowed, just .259) has surged Detroit incredibly close to postseason play.
LINDSAY CROSBY