DETROIT -- Tigers players were making plans for October as summer wound down. They didn’t necessarily involve the postseason.

After trading away veterans at the Deadline and sitting under .500, it was only human nature to look ahead. It’s what the Tigers had done for years since their last postseason berth in 2014.

“I got a wedding to go to, one of my friend’s weddings,” reliever Beau Brieske said. “He already reached out and said, ‘Hey, I understand.'”

He wasn’t alone. Rookie Justyn-Henry Malloy and his girlfriend had plans to visit the Dominican Republic.

“When we were starting to get into that discussion of a potential playoff, I told my girlfriend, ‘I’m just giving you a heads-up early that I’m hoping we cancel our vacation,’” Malloy said Friday afternoon before the 4-1 win over the White Sox that clinched their American League Wild Card spot.

“I bet you most guys had plans.”

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Kerry Carpenter and his wife, expecting their first child, had plans for doctor’s appointments and preparing for a family. Some of that, obviously, is still happening. Many players had family plans.

Even those who didn’t have grand plans were admittedly looking ahead.

“I bet a decent group of guys were planning on going to that Monday Night Football game with the Lions here,” said Tarik Skubal, noting the Lions-Seahawks game at Ford Field the night after the Tigers’ regular-season finale. “I bet a bunch of guys were planning on doing that.

“Things have changed. And that's awesome. That's what we wanted anyways.”

It’s what they all wanted, even if they didn’t envision it happening like this.

In early August, as Riley Greene was nearing a return from the hamstring injury that forced him to the injured list, he talked about returning in time to help the Tigers make a playoff run. The Tigers were eight games under .500 at the time and had a 0.2 percent chance at a postseason spot according to Fangraphs.

“What if we win out,” Greene said, straight-faced.

They didn’t win out, but they’re 31-11 since. It looked like clairvoyance, but he said later he was just reading a sign he had seen from a fan.

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The seven-week run that sent the Tigers to their first postseason berth in 10 years was so sudden that even the most optimistic of players would’ve had a hard time forecasting. They’ve always believed in each other, believed they were good enough. They didn’t necessarily believe they had enough games left.

Instead of worrying about that, they just focused on each game, each day. It was the point manager A.J. Hinch emphasized.

They had a two-man rotation at the time in Skubal and Keider Montero. The other games were a bevy of openers and bulk pitchers, from castoffs Bryan Sammons and Brenan Hanifee to prospects Brant Hurter and Ty Madden.

“I’ve been managing like it’s Game 7 for two months,” Hinch said Friday afternoon.

While rookies Dillon Dingler, Jace Jung and just-acquired Trey Sweeney came up, Greene, Carpenter, Spencer Torkelson and Parker Meadows came back. The Tigers split a West Coast trip to Seattle and San Francisco, then swept the NL West-contending Mariners at Comerica Park.

After being shut down by Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, the Tigers bounced back with back-to-back wins over the Bronx Bombers, culminating in Meadows’ game-winning single at the Little League Classic.

“I think the walk-off at the Little League Classic was a big moment,” Hinch said. “We won a series from one of the best teams in the league.”

The wins kept coming -- a 5-2 road trip in Chicago, a 4-2 homestand against the Angels and Red Sox to get back over .500.

They were a strike away from getting swept in San Diego when Meadows hit a go-ahead grand slam. They took two of three in Oakland, beat the Rockies, beat the Orioles at Comerica Park, swept the Royals, then beat the O’s in Baltimore.

“Didn’t even envision that we would be in this spot as a team,” Brieske said. “We really just started playing well, and then started playing really well, and then it continued.”

What began as a good stretch -- Hinch refuses to call it a stretch because stretches end -- became 31-11.

Now, here they are. And as Meadows and right fielder Wenceel Pérez converged and collided on Andrew Vaughn’s fly ball for Friday’s final out, it seemed a fitting culmination of the run. Pérez held onto the ball on the ground while Meadows raised his arms in celebration. And a team that has focused on what’s immediately in front of them for nearly two months could finally look up and appreciate what they’ve done.

“It’s kind of picture perfect on how to punch our ticket to October, with an imperfect play,” Hinch said, “with guys literally trying to do everything they can to catch it. One of them does.

“We’ll go over the film and it’ll give us something to poke fun at, but that sense of accomplishment is second to none.”