Tigers letting the kids play ... and win
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The last surprise of the regular season in baseball, and one every bit as good as any of the others, is the way A.J. Hinch’s Tigers team has played in August and September, like a bunch of kids taking over the principal’s office, as they’ve made the kind of move they’ve made in the American League Wild Card race -- tied with the Royals for the second spot, two games ahead of the Twins. In the process, they have lifted up a baseball city that has been down for too long, one that has waited through seven straight losing seasons for the Tigers to come back.
“It has been really incredible to see this group grow up fast,” Hinch told me late Wednesday afternoon. “Fun wins.”
The latest fun win came against the Rays, with Hinch’s ace Tarik Skubal, who ought to win his league’s Cy Young Award, winning his 18th game -- seven innings, seven strikeouts, two hits in a 2-1 victory. If the Tigers do get into the postseason, and don’t need to win Sunday to get there, their Game 1 starter on Tuesday -- when the fun really begins -- will be Skubal, and you tell me which one of the other playoff teams would want to face him.
The Tigers have gone 28-11 since Aug. 10, when they were still eight games under .500. The Tigers were still a game under .500 a month ago exactly, on Aug. 25. Now there they come and here they are. This is Hinch’s fourth season with the Tigers, by the way. By the time he got to the Astros, their rebuild was complete. He has lived through one of his own in Detroit. Now here he is, too, on the threshold of the postseason -- two more games against the Rays and then three at Comerica Park this weekend against the White Sox -- doing work as a manager as good as he’s ever done.
So I asked Hinch what changed. What flipped the switch for his team when it looked as if it might be on its way to an eighth straight losing season in Detroit?
Hinch: “We got younger, more athletic, have pitched incredibly well, and went all-in on using our roster to its strengths.”
The average age of the team he started against the Rays on Wednesday was barely over 25. There wasn’t a player in his starting lineup who was 30. The two oldest players who started the game for him were Zach McKinstry at third and Jake Rogers behind the plate. They’re both 29. Wenceel Pérez, who knocked in Detroit’s two runs, is 24. Skubal is still just 27.
“[Skubal] is,” Hinch said, “incredible.”
The whole thing has looked that way since August. Riley Greene is 23. Second baseman Colt Keith is 23. Parker Meadows is 24. So is Trey Sweeney, the shortstop. Spencer Torkelson is 25. Kerry Carpenter is 27. Beau Brieske, who came in behind Skubal on Wednesday to pitch two shutout innings, is 26. Yeah, the manager is right. They’ve all grown up fast.
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The Tigers quietly finished second to the Twins in the AL Central last season, nine games back, with the Twins being the only team in the division over .500. Things have changed a lot between last September and this one. Now, the young Guardians have won the Central, and there are still three potential playoff teams behind them: Tigers, Royals, Twins. Coming into Wednesday’s games, the Central was the only division in baseball that had four teams with records over .500.
But no team in it -- even with the way the Guardians have solidified their room at the top -- has been hotter than the Tigers have been. Their fans know the names of these young players. The country might be about to find out. Even against the White Sox, it is going to be a baseball weekend out of the past at Comerica, as the Tigers try to officially punch their ticket back into October for the first time in a long time, since Max Scherzer was the ace in Detroit that Skubal has become.
Hinch: “I expect the weekend to be crazy.”
There have other dramatic turnarounds in baseball, for sure. The Padres were still a .500 team starting the second half of the season, have gone 41-17 since, and still might take the NL West from the Dodgers. The Astros were 24-32, but have rebounded to win their fourth straight AL West title. The Mets went months with the best record after starting 22-33. But over the last quarter of the season, Hinch’s kids have been as good as anybody.
I had checked in with the Tigers manager a couple of weeks ago and asked this question:
“Is your team really doing this?”
Here was his answer:
“Pretty interesting couple of weeks ahead. But I like how we’re playing.”
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He also talked about a “big next nine games” with the Orioles and Royals, but how he felt his team matched up well with both of them. It sure did. The Tigers won two of three from the Orioles, swept the Royals, then took two of three from the Orioles again.
In the moment when the Tigers’ season was first on the line, they won seven of nine. They are nine games over .500 now. Five games left. Not there yet. But close. As somebody once said, let the kids play.