This should be a rout.
Entering a best-of-five American League Division Series, the Mariners have much more overall talent than the Tigers.
Other than the unicorn known as Tarik Skubal, Seattle has much better and deeper pitching. The offenses aren’t remotely close, especially after the Mariners added sluggers Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor at the trade deadline, while we all know what the Tigers didn’t do.
Seattle’s Cal Raleigh is a switch hitting catcher who hit 60 home runs. And he’s won a Gold Glove. Julio Rodriguez is one of the best young players in MLB.
The Mariners started the Tigers’ epic slide just before the All-Star break, destroying them three straight games at Comerica Park. Yet, the Tigers, for reasons other than just “baseball is fickle,” have more than a fighting chance.
The Tigers are essentially playing with house money, while the pressure on the Mariners is enormous. The Mariners, who entered the AL as an expansion team in 1977, have never won a pennant. In 2001, Seattle tied the MLB record with 116 wins, but lost in the ALCS to the Yankees. The Mariners didn’t reach the postseason again until 2022. This is their only appearance since. They were swept in the ALCS by the Astros in '22. This is only the sixth time in 49 years the Mariners have appeared in the postseason.
And this despite possessing some of MLB’s truly great players like Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Adrian Beltre, Felix Hernandez, Edgar Martinez and Ichiro Suzuki.
On the other hand, this edition of the Tigers has been roundly skewered. President of baseball operations Scott Harris added precious little high-end talent at the trade deadline, and his explanation why came back to bite him in the form of an epic nose-dive. Heart-of-the-order hitters Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter have sputtered. The bullpen has leaked oil. The Tigers whiff and strand runners at a frustrating rate.
Somehow, the Tigers have been able to party like it’s 1999 twice, after clinching a playoff spot and capturing a playoff series. It seems like the players and the coaches still believe in themselves, even if the rest of the world doesn’t. That type of bonding, while impossible to quantify with any form of analytics, can nonetheless be powerful.
While the Tigers have been clawing to just advance, playing essentially playoff games for weeks non-stop, the Mariners will not have played for nearly a week. Theoretically, the bye should benefit Seattle. The Mariners can set up their pitching ideally, and the players should be rested.
However, as the 2006 and 2012 Tigers proved by getting upset in the World Series after long layoffs, the opposite can be true.
This being a five-game series could play right into the Tigers' hands because Skubal will be making two starts if it goes the distance. In a seven-game set, he’d still start just twice.
In the regular season, Skubal pitched 13 percent of the Tigers’ innings. In a full five-game series, assuming he works at least six innings per start, and there are no extra-inning games, that percentage would be more than doubled to 27 percent. He has averaged 6.2 innings in his four career postseason starts with a 2.03 ERA and a 0.788 WHIP.
Of course, there is plenty of evidence that can be made justifying why the Mariners are a solid favorite.
But the Tigers can win this series. And if they do, it would not be a fluke.