SAN FRANCISCO – The Detroit Tigers just traded their generational pitcher and somehow turned their season around anyway.
It just feels different now, even if the turnaround started long before their West Coast romp the last couple of weeks. And it should.
If nothing else, their series win at Oracle Park, Sunday, Aug. 9, sends the Tigers back to Michigan having earned the right to play meaningful baseball games.
Cleveland is first. The feel-good Chicago White Sox follow.
Not that anyone around here should care about Chicago’s worst-to-first narrative. It’s Chicago. That city should never be seen as an underdog.
You know what is a good story?
The Tigers, a squad that lost its ace to the big, bad bullies in Los Angeles and ripped off seven wins in nine games without him. Well, technically, Tarik Skubal was still on the roster when the trip began in West Sacramento, California, all the way back in July.
But he didn’t pitch in the series-opener against the Athletics, and by the next night, he was packing his bags and hugging it out with this group of increasingly stubborn ball players.
Stubborn because they still believe, and never stopped believing, they’ll tell you. Now they have proof as to why.
Like having the second-best record in the American League since the beginning of June. Like having a pitching staff that just allowed 17 runs over nine games, and a lineup that is sturdier and steadier by the week, led at the top by one of the best rookies in recent franchise history.
And if the bullpen cleans up its late-inning struggles, as it did against the Giants Sunday in a 3-1 win? The playoffs aren’t just possible; they’re probable.
Heck, the division would be possible, too.
The Tigers just won an extra-inning game because Kyle Finnegan, Drew Sommers, Kenley Jansen and Tyler Horton completed four high-pressure innings without allowing an earned run.
“I love the toughness that they’re showing, coming in and getting some big outs,” said A.J. Hinch. “They don’t have to be perfect. But I’m super proud of how they’ve sort of not listened to the waves of emotion and gone out and done their jobs.”
Biggest week of the season?
By waves of emotion, he means outside noise, which is to say criticism, which was deserved, of course, though it’s hard to blame a manager for protecting his players. He should. And has, though maybe he won’t have to as much if the bullpen keeps looking like this.
Because of the bullpen, and because of the lineup and the starting rotation and the general refusal to do anything but stay ready and compete, the Tigers are coming home to play their two biggest series of the season so far.
Hinch can’t wait.
“Every game feels like Game 7,” he said Sunday. “We’ve been going at it for a couple months now to try to get ourselves to this exact position. I imagine there are a lot of people around Detroit that are looking forward to this series maybe even a little more than they were a month or two ago.”
Shoot, even two weeks ago, before the trade deadline, when the Tigers split a four-game series at home with the Kansas City Royals, blowing a couple of leads, and then losing two of three against Baltimore, in maddeningly similar fashion.
It looked a little different then. Felt a little different, too.
But then Troy Melton keeps hanging zeros on the scoreboard, and Jackson Jobe made his season debut, and Dillon Dingler and Kevin McGonigle are becoming one of the best 1-2 punches in the American League.
And bottom-of-the-lineup guys are discovering – or rediscovering – some of their mojo, like Zack McKinstry, who realized he was chasing too far off the plate instead of making the pitcher come back to him.
He’s been on a tear since that adjustment, and the more he hits the more he gets on base and the more he causes trouble for the defense – he is their best baserunner. On Sunday, he made the play of the game with his glove when he threw out a runner tagging at third from deep in right field.
“I’ve had a couple this year that have bounced in the grass and got kind of caught up,” he said. “I was just trying to get it all the way to home plate.”
When did he know it had a chance to get the runner?
“I saw Melton behind home plate, and he was already raising his hands,” said McKinstry.
He was smiling as he recalled this, and why not? As he said, “I’m getting into a bit of a groove.”
He isn’t the only one.
Don’t let the Tigers get hot
If hitting is contagious, then so is winning, and making winning plays, like McKinstry’s throw, and making winning pitches, like Sommers did in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and one out.
The lefty reliever took a deep breath when pitching coach Chris Fetter visited him at the mound. That was by design, said Hinch, so that Sommers could gather himself for the moment.
He did and threw an 84 slider that darted at the last minute, and all Rafael Devers could do was roll his bat over the top. Gleyber Torres scooped it up and tossed it to McGonigle covering second and he whipped it to first for a game-saving double play.
Yeah, they miscommunicated in the seventh in the outfield, and a fly ball dropped in, and that runner eventually scored after two more errors. Ideally, that doesn’t happen. But then this is baseball, and how are you going to respond to your mistakes?
This is what the Tigers are doing more consistently and determinedly now; this is why they’ve been winning. They are making plays when they need them.
They’ve pulled and pushed and scraped and clawed, and they can see the surface now. And if they get there (they are two games below .500), the possibilities stretch out past the horizon.
Not that the Tigers are thinking about where this season could lead if they keep playing as they have the last two months and keep playing as they have the last two weeks.
If nothing else, their 10-day, nine-game trek from California to Seattle back to California brought a little clarity:
They are legitimately in this playoff race, a game back of the final wild-card spot, with the AL Central still in play; they trail the White Sox by 3½ games. Their 7-2 streak past the Athletics, the Mariners and the Giants turns this week into must-see baseball.
Yes, all three teams are below .500, and the Athletics are particularly awful. But then they beat the Red Sox Sunday, because they’re a major league team, and even the worst teams don’t lose 162 games.
The Tigers did what they had to do. Because of that, August suddenly feels a little bit different.
“I think it’s going to be a great week for us,” said McKinstry. “Looking forward to getting back to Comerica and doing some damage there against some division rivals. It’s going to be a lot of fun … The way these guys are throwing the ball right now? I think we can play with anybody.”
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers absolutely back in playoff race after epic heater out West
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
