CHICAGO -- The rainbow over Guaranteed Rate Field lasted maybe a minute on Sunday afternoon before the storms took over again. The rain that had soaked the Tigers for most of their ninth-inning rally and Michael Fulmer’s save relented just long enough for them to celebrate a 5-2 win over the White Sox before resuming.

• Box score

It’s Chicago weather in October, but it was probably fitting. While the Tigers took their last at-bats, packed up and headed home, the White Sox readied for more baseball. The contrast wasn’t lost on Detroit players, young or old.

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The Sox are where the Tigers are trying to get, atop the American League Central, after being where Detroit is now, coming out of a rebuild. The Tigers have a lot of time ahead to think about how to bridge the gap. They've already spent three days pondering it.

“I think we’re building a little bit of a rivalry with this team,” said Matt Manning, whose five scoreless innings Saturday marked one of the Tigers’ bright spots of the series. “Where we want to be, that’s where they’re at, and that’s what we’re coming for.”

Robbie Grossman, who quickly became a veteran leader in the Tigers' clubhouse this year, made a point this weekend to have his younger teammates watch how the White Sox approached their business.

"I made comments to a bunch of the guys,” Grossman said. “'Hey, you still want to play for another month? Look at these guys’ intensity as they go through their practice and everything. They’re ramping up to play another month.'”

Sunday’s victory didn’t make much of a difference in that regard, other than to finish Detroit’s season with a 77-85 record and third-place division standing, the team’s best year since 2016. But the attitude that took hold over the course of the year, the attitude that lifted Detroit out of a 9-24 start to the season, continued into the final day, even with several veterans out of the lineup for rest.

The Tigers stole four bases in the first five innings; only one Tiger who reached first base safely in that span didn’t swipe second. Akil Baddoo turned a leadoff single into a go-ahead run without another hit, rounding the bases on a steal and two fly balls.

Once Daz Cameron led off the ninth with an opposite-field solo homer through the rain off Reynaldo López, the Tigers were looking for the win, not the door. Willi Castro tested Eloy Jiménez’s arm in left field and scored an add-on run from first on a Dustin Garneau double.

“I think this season has proved that we're going to attack where we feel like we can be successful, and part of that has been [being] pretty aggressive on the bases,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “I know we've run into a lot of outs. We haven't made the best decisions the entire season. But this aggressive mindset of getting to the next base pays off.”

Tyler Alexander continued his strong stretch run with six innings of one-run ball, his only blemish a Luis Robert solo homer. After Andrew Vaughn’s RBI single tied the game in the seventh, the Tigers kept it there with a well-executed rundown for a 3-2-5-1-6-3 double play, the kind of final-game execution that warms a manager’s heart.

Once Zack Short -- who spent much of the afternoon diving for ground balls -- circled second base through a muddy infield for the game-ending force out at second, the Tigers hugged each other on their way off the field, beginning their farewells after a 3-hour, 16-minute game. There was no big speech; Hinch said he talked to the team after they were officially eliminated from playoff contention a couple of weeks ago.

The next time the Tigers take the field, they could look very different -- maybe with a big-name shortstop, maybe with top prospects at first base and an outfield spot. But the attitude has to remain.

“The more I hear our guys talk, the more I have these exit interviews that I'm doing, the more I realize that our players get it,” Hinch said before the game. “I mean, they’ve really enjoyed the winning and we haven’t even won yet, so they’re enjoying the progress that we made this season. They’re going to enjoy, hopefully, the years to come when we’re in it. And I think everybody around the club wants to be one of those teams.

“There’s only a few teams that can say that they’re still playing for something today. We’ve got to work our tail off so that next year, we can be one of those teams.”