Last time the Tigers visited Kansas City, they were swept out of Kauffman Stadium like dirt in the dugout. In three games, the veteran trio of Javier Baez, Mark Canha and Gio Urshela went 1-for-25. The bullpen gave up 13 runs. The Tigers even lost the finale in a game started by Tarik Skubal. They were 23-26 and gathering dust before June.
In the manager's office after the series, A.J. Hinch had to defend his team's competitive spirit. The Tigers had lost all three games by five runs or more, roundly outplayed by a division rival on the rise. Kansas City was climbing the American League standings a year after losing a franchise-worst 106 games. The Tigers were sinking toward their eighth straight losing season, their fourth straight under Hinch.
"No matter what your record is, you have to review what you’re doing well, what you’re not doing well," Hinch said that afternoon in May. "Our pitchers are going through it a little bit and offensively we haven’t gotten into games."
Four months later, Hinch is leading the hottest team in baseball. The Tigers are on a mad dash to the playoffs, winners of 25 of their last 35 games. They were 9.5 games behind the Twins on Aug. 22 for the final AL wild card spot, also trailing the Mariners, Rays and Red Sox. After sweeping the Royals in their return to Kansas City, they have put the latter three in the rearview and trail the Twins by half a game.
In that same office Wednesday night, Hinch smiled when asked about managing his young, athletic team.
"It’s awesome," he said. "First off, we believe. And secondly, we come every day to try to win, and we are winning a lot. It’s fun to watch these guys learn and grow and compete their ass off to the end of the game."
The big hits Wednesday night came from 23-year-old All-Star Riley Greene, who homered in the third -- his 24th of the season -- to spark a three-run rally, and 24-year-old Trey Sweeney, who finished said rally with a two-run double. Scoring on the play were 25-year-old Spencer Torkelson, who was on base three times Wednesday night, and 23-year-old Jace Jung, who beat a close play at the plate with a slide straight out of a game of Twister.
Jung popped up and roared, then bounded into the dugout and ran through a line of high-fives and flying sunflower seeds from his teammates. You might have thought they were playing in the Little League World Series, which is where this team gained steam. A month ago Wednesday, the Tigers beat the Yankees in Williamsport on Sunday Night Baseball thanks to a game-tying hit in the ninth by 23-year-old Colt Keith and a walk-off in the 10th by 24-year-old Parker Meadows. Since returning in early August from an injury and a prior demotion to Toledo, Meadows has sparked the Tigers in every way possible.
"At the Little League Classic, we're facing Soto and Judge, and that was a really big breakthrough for us, being able to win a series against the Yankees," Hinch said last week.
The Tigers had swept the Mariners to start that week, winning the final game on a go-ahead homer by Baez. After the game, Hinch told his $140 million shortstop he wouldn't be playing much the rest of the way; his replacement, who had been acquired at the deadline when the Tigers folded up shop and traded Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers, was on his way to Detroit. The next day, the Tigers DFA'd Urshela to also make way for Jung, their first-round pick in 2022, who was coming with Sweeney from Toledo.
When the Tigers took the field Wednesday night, the oldest player in their lineup was 29-year-old catcher Jake Rogers. Most importantly, the best pitcher in baseball was on the mound. Skubal was hit around a bit in the first in a stadium where he's been beat up in the past, but limited the damage to a single run and didn't allow another hit the rest of the night. He only made it through five innings -- "but we win, who cares," he said. He closed his outing by getting the biggest out of his young career "against his biggest nemesis," said Hinch.
With two on and two out, here came All-Star Salvador Perez, who has more homers and RBI against Skubal than anyone in the majors. Perez ran the count full, before Skubal got him swinging on a changeup and spun and screamed toward the heavens. He said that he "emptied the tank" from his first pitch of the night, knowing the stakes of the game and the team on the other side.
"It was a big fight for him, and he did a great job," said Hinch. "Sometimes, five is enough. If he implodes in the first inning or isn’t able to make pitches to Salvy who he knows has been good against him, this game is completely different. He’s our guy. We need our guy to do his part, and tonight he did."
Skubal passed the baton to the Tigers' bullpen, which ran the final four laps with relative ease from Brenan Hanifee to Sean Guenther to Will Vest. Who? Exactly. On Tuesday it was Shelby Miller, Beau Brieske, Tyler Holton and Jason Foley, on Monday a five-man relay of said arms. Over 16 1/3 innings in Kansas City, the Tigers' bullpen allowed three runs. It ranks second in the AL in ERA this season and has been flat-out dominant of late.
Detroit's pitching staff, which for a while was being held together by Skubal, openers and rosin, leads the majors in ERA during the club's 25-10 surge.
"I’m really proud of the guys," Skubal said. "Last time we came here, we were on the other side of a sweep. We have a good group, a resilient group. If you just look at the season that we’ve had, I think it showed in this series."
The Tigers have nine games remaining, and a 50 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Baseball-Reference (50.3, for those keeping score at home). It feels likelier than that with everything working in their favor, including the free-falling Twins who blew another late-game lead Wednesday night in Cleveland. By next week, the tie-breaker that Minnesota holds over Detroit might not matter. Major League Baseball hasn't seen a run like this since the 1973 Mets, who were managed by Yogi Berra and reached the World Series.
"We need to keep winning," said Skubal, "and hopefully we can control our destiny down the stretch."
Their final six games come in Detroit, where we haven't seen playoff baseball in 10 years -- tied for the longest drought in the majors. To end it, the so-called Gritty Tigs will need to keep clawing their way to wins with clutch hitting and cold-blooded pitching. It's been a dizzying ride, like the leaping ring of outfielders after each Tigers victory. Hold on tight, and don't look down.