The race gets tighter and the nails get bitten progressively shorter.
In Part 1 of this two-part series we reviewed the setup to a September stretch run that ultimately ended up with the Tigers back in the playoffs for the first time in a dog’s age. We also looked at the games in the first half of the month which, for the most part, went pretty well: from September 1 through 15 they had an 8-5 record and were definitely knocking on the door of the postseason, despite all odds (as we have seen).
At the conclusion of play on Sunday, September 15, the Tigers were 2.5 games back of the Minnesota Twins , with a 77-73 record and sitting in fourth spot in the American League Central. FanGraphs calculated the odds of a playoff spot at that point of 9.9% which was, I believe, and I’m no mathematician… not great.
How’d they do it? For the low, low price of free, read on and find out.
Hit the Road, Jack: Kansas City and Baltimore
While the team’s only “Jack” — one Mr. Flaherty — had already been dealt-away because the Tigers’ brass thought they’d be sellers at the trade deadline, the rest of the fellows went west to Kansas City for a three-game series against their division rival Royals. At the start of the series the Royals had a record of 82-68, sat in second place in the AL Central, and were pretty comfortably in the second Wild Card spot.
The opening game of the series didn’t look too promising early on, as Bobby Witt Jr. smacked a grand slam off Reese Olson in the third inning, knocking him out of the game. Sean Guenther righted the ship and he, Brenan Hanifee, Will Vest, Beau Brieske and Jason Foley were the multi-armed bullpen force that buttoned things down the rest of the way, giving the Tigers’ bats a chance to get going.
Down 5-1 in the fifth the Tigers clawed back to make it 5-4, but Witt drove in a sixth run with an infield single. But in the seventh, Not-So-Secret-Weapon Wenceel Pérez pinch-hit and drove in a pair to tie the game, and Matt Vierling put the Tigers ahead for good with a single to right.
The next night was a little less dramatic, but it was still a little dramatic because, hey, it’s the 2024 Tigers we’re talking about here. The middle game of the series saw a tight 1-1 contest go into the tenth inning, and Trey Sweeney scored the ultimately-winning run on a Parker Meadows single. Meadows came around to score a little insurance on a single up the middle by Riley Greene for a 3-1 lead and the series win.
After that win on Tuesday the 17th the Tigers were 79-73, 1.5 games behind Minnesota for the final Wild Card… and a nifty three games behind those Missourians for the second Wild Card. Playoff odds were up to a dizzying 21.5%.
Could they sweep the Royals? Well, with ace and future Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal on the mound for you, it’s a very distinct possibility… and indeed they pulled off the three-game sweep, with Greene smacking a solo home run in the third and Sweeney driving in Spencer Torkelson and Jace Jung with a double. Jung’s slide was a thing of beauty, and I’m still not sure how he didn’t get tagged out, but he evaded Salvador Perez all the same:
With Minnesota losing to Cleveland, the day ended with the Tigers only a half-game behind Minnesota and the final Wild Card, and two behind the Royals. Those FanGraphs playoff odds were a bananas 42.2%.
An off-day apparently cooled the fellows off, as they dropped the opener of a three-game weekend series in Baltimore 7-1 on Friday the 20th. Tyler Holton opened, Keider Montero got knocked-around a bit, and Kenta Maeda ended things by throwing 2 ⅓ hitless innings in which he struck out five and walked nobody.
Hear me out, Tiger fans: if Kenta Maeda can be a long guy out of the bullpen that can give you two or three innings a couple of times a week, he can be a very valuable part of this pitching staff. Is he going to be a solid, mid-rotation innings-eater? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean he can’t contribute. Alright, back to our regularly-schedule reminiscing.
The Saturday night game was an all-time classic. Detroit went up 2-0 in the second with a two-run triple by Dillon Dingler, but gave a run back in the bottom of the inning. Baltimore tied things up in the sixth with a run charged to Brenan Hanifee after he departed for Will Vest, but with two eighth-inning runs, the Cardiac Cats went ahead 4-2 as the game entered the ninth.
The normally-reliable Foley took over in the ninth, and he allowed a pair of singles and a walk to load the bases. Gunnar Henderson’s double scored a pair to re-tie the game, putting the winning run on third with none out. A grounder to second wasn’t inviting-enough for the runner on third to make a dash for the plate, and with one out Anthony Santander lifted a blooper to no-man’s land behind third base. Sweeney took care of it in arguably the best defensive play of the entire season:
Not only did he get to that ball which he had no business getting to, but after colliding with a surprised Greene and taking a tumble, he had the presence of mind to get up and make sure the runner from third didn’t score. Should Jackson Holliday have broke for home with one out the instant the ball hit Sweeney’s glove? Hey that’s not our problem. That’s just a sensational play from Sweeney all around.
That sent the game to extras, and the Tigers promptly scored two runs with a single from RIley Greene to lead off, a double from Jace Jung to get Greene to third, and then a sacrifice fly from Zach McKinstry to make it 6-4. Beau Brieske picked up where he left off and shut the door.
The Twins beat the Red Sox on Friday night but they were rained-out on Saturday, so their record was stuck at 81-73 while the Tigers moved to 81-74, resulting in Detroit only being a half-game back in the AL Central standings.
Minnesota’s Saturday rainout was made up as part of a doubleheader on Sunday, in which they were swept — and they went into a further tailspin from there. Including that doubleheader in Boston, the Twins went 1-7 in their final eight games, and we all know how the season ended for them. But, I digress.
The series and road-trip finale in Baltimore was a quintessential Pitching Chaos game, the only blip being Ty Madden: he gave up three runs in the sixth, allowing the Orioles to tie the game. But then Kerry Carpenter answered right back with a solo home run on the second pitch of the top of the seventh, his second dinger of the day:
That second solo home run would be the game-winning run, as the Tiger bullpen — Guenther, Hanifee, Vest and Foley — locked it down for a 4-3 win.
The win, paired with the aforementioned Twins’ doubleheader loss and the Royals losing to the Giants vaulted the Tigers past Minnesota in the standings and tied them with Kansas City, with a week to go. Playoff odds: 70.3%, the first time that number was over 50% all season.
Home for a Rest: Tampa Bay and the White Sox
(If you’re not Canadian you may not know that song. If you are, and you’re within a particular age window, you’ve definitely jumped around to it at a bar after a few adult beverages sometime in your life. Either way, give it a listen .)
The first of the three-game series of the final week of the season, after a day off, saw Skubal take on the Rays, and his outing was exactly what the Tigers (and their weary bullpen) needed: seven innings of two-hit, no-run, seven-whiff ball.
Clutch, baby. Clutch.
Brieske took over for a six-out save, and in the fifth Pérez provided all the offence the Tigers would get, or need, with a bases-loaded ground-rule double. A Twins loss in Miami dropped them two behind the Tigers, whose playoff odds were above 87%. Was it a matter of time now? Was the playoff spot inevitable? In baseball, anything’s possible; just ask the 1987 Toronto Blue Jays .
Wednesday night’s game was an anomaly in that it was an easy win (7-1) against the Rays. Montero had a short start and then it was bullpen guys the rest of the way… however, this was the game in which Jackson Jobe made his highly-anticipated debut. He allowed a harmless single in getting the three final outs of the game as the Playoff Odds climbed above 90%.
Thursday’s victory was back to its normal, nail-biting, late-inning-heroics thing: after falling behind 3-0 in the fifth against Tyler Alexander, the Tigers crawled to within a run with a Colt Keith triple and a Carpenter pinch-hit single. They took the lead in the bottom of the eighth and Foley nailed down the victory. Ho-hum.
That made it a sweep over the Rays, and one more victory would seal the deal. The playoffs were so close, fans could taste it like a Faygo Redpop or a Coney Dog (they’re all good, c’mon now, don’t pick favourites).
The Chicago White Sox came to town hoping to avoid an ignominious record: most losses in a season in the modern era. Let me tell you, I was at Game 162 of that wretched 2003 season and I thank the baseball gods that the Tigers didn’t lose that day to break the 1962 Mets ’ record.
However, when the dust settled on this game, two things had happened: one, the aforementioned record had been broken. Two, the Tigers were playoffs-bound, having secured a Wild Card with a 4-1 win, and what better way to do it than with the ol’ Pitching Chaos approach? Hanifee started, Brant Hurter threw four innings to get the win, and the Vest, Holton and Foley Trio nailed it all down.
Yes, Perez and Meadows could’ve communicated a little better on that fly ball, but in their defense it was probably pretty loud out there, with a jam-packed Comerica Park screaming at the top of their lungs and all. Here’s a view from field level:
Let’s give the last word to Holton. Out of all the guys on that magical team, I feel that, without him being able to open, or close, or go multiple innings in the middle of a game — and to do it all spectacularly well (2.19 ERA, 0.784 (!!!) WHIP, 94 ⅓ tough-as-nails innings) — this crazy patchwork pitching approach never would’ve worked.
He’s not the most exciting interviewee you’ve ever seen, but what’d you expect, Nuke LaLoosh? There’s a reason Crash Davis taught him how to speak in clichés.
The Tigers then lost the last two games of the season, but the champagne had already flowed and it was time to set up the pitchers for the Wild Card round anyway.
In March, if you’d told me the Tigers would’ve been within a few games of a Wild Card in mid-September but fell off at the end, I’d have considered that a pretty solid season. To have them get into the playoffs was amazing, and to vanquish the Houston Astros in the Wild Card series, well now, that was some pretty spectacular icing on an already-stupendous cake. Sure, they lost to Cleveland in an ALDS series they led 2-1, but that’s a really good team, loath as we are to admit it around these parts.
So, what does the 2025 season hold? We’ve started looking at that around here, and our commenters have already carried that conversation forwards. Keep those wild opinions and outrageous speculations coming, and hopefully the Tigers can build on what they achieved last year to make an even deeper playoff run. Or, maybe like Jake Taylor observed, there’s only one thing left to do (NSFW language, but nothing you haven’t heard before).
Let’s have one final look at the FanGraphs playoff odds for the Tigers last season, with their line isolated.
Now that’s a beautiful graph.