Jahmai Jones was safe by the sole of his shoe, maybe less. As he stood on first with the play under review and the game in the balance, and the weight of this frustrating season on his shoulders, you can imagine what was going through his head.
“What wasn’t, man?” Jones said with a laugh. “Everything. ‘Please, lord, let this be a hit. It’s Father’s Day, man.’ You never really know when it goes to replay, I was just fingers crossed. Finally got the verdict that I was safe, and it was a good feeling.”
Jones and the Tigers needed a moment, a game, a series like this. Right now, they need reasons to believe. They found some this weekend, in the first three games of a crucial 10-game homestand.
A pop-fly go-ahead double by Kerry Carpenter on Friday. An infield single by Jones to extend the game on Sunday. A pop-fly walk-off single by Matt Vierling to clinch a sweep of the White Sox, who entered the weekend leading the AL Central. A larger sense that maybe, just maybe, the tides are starting to turn.
“With how things have gone, with how good of a team that is over there, to be able to finish off a sweep like this was huge,” said Vierling. “We need every win we can get right now. To win those close games is really good for some momentum, especially to come back like that, too.”
To come back from the dead is a different matter, and the Tigers still have a long way to go. The weekend only matters if it extends into this week. The week will only matter if it continues next month. But they’ve got a few things working in their favor, notably a division that hasn’t completely gotten away from them and a league in which the last wild card team is under .500. Most notable of all, they’ve got their ace back on the hill, which makes the one they’re trying to climb feel a tad shorter.
Tarik Skubal and the Tigers are in a race against time to get this season off the ground. Each win over the next several weeks extends their runway ahead of the deadline. They were seven games and nine teams back of the last wild card spot when the month began. They’re five games and six teams back now, slowly gaining ground. In the words of Jones, “The only way I’m gonna get through is to push through.”
Jones was 1 for his last 24, 2 for his last 36 when he came to the plate against right-handed closer Seranthony Dominguez with the bases empty and two outs in the ninth. He was 0 for 16 this year against righties. He’s been hearing the boos at Comerica Park — of course he has — whenever he enters the game as a pinch-hitter. The rancor, to be fair, has been aimed at his manager’s insistence on analytics as much as anything, a general indictment of the Tigers’ self-inflicted circumstances.
Jahmai Jones: "I think that’s the first time in my career I’ve been booed by an entire stadium, and I feel like fans forget that we’re trying just as hard — I promise. ... But hopefully I start turning it on so they can forgive me. I know the entire city wants us to win." pic.twitter.com/nUQly1TagT
— 97.1 The Ticket: (@971theticketxyt) June 21, 2026
Jones hit a grounder toward the shortstop hole and busted his tail down the line to beat the throw to first. Dillon Dingler, who wound up driving Jones home with his MLB-leading 33rd two-out RBI of the season to tie the game, said later that Jones’ infield single was “the play of the game” and the “kickstart” to Detroit’s rally. Maybe this will be the kickstart to a longer run.
After the game, Dingler said a group of players was talking in the clubhouse. And some of the guys who are new this year to Detroit “were like, ‘Ohh, that was fun.’ You feel the atmosphere, you feel the nature of the team,’ and it takes you back a little bit to early last season and late ’24, for the guys who were here, and the feeling that no matter what the score is in the 8th and 9th, we always have a shot. We’re always going to put together really good at-bats and give ourselves an opportunity to come back.”
Their best shot revolves around pitching. The arms were always supposed to be the strength of this team, and the Tigers are finally starting to flex. In a way, injuries might have forced Detroit into its most dynamic five-man rotation, with Troy Melton and Keider Montero replacing Jack Flaherty and Justin Verlander, joining Skubal, Framber Valdez and Casey Mize.
Montero was terrific on Sunday aside from a hanging curve to Luisangel Acuña in the sixth. The Tigers have the best rotation ERA (3.61) and the second best team ERA (3.18) in the majors in the month of June, and their record is starting to catch up. Up next, the AL-leading Yankees, first in the majors in homers despite an injury to Aaron Judge. The Tigers will counter with Mize, Valdez and Skubal. This is how they can get rolling.
The fans were roaring for most of the weekend. They’re not going away yet, desperate to see this team live up to preseason expectations. They streamed through the gates and stayed to the end, marking the highest attendance numbers for a three-game series this season, sell-outs on Friday and Sunday. Skubal recently said that the Tigers are “playing playoff baseball in June” given the stakes of the next couple months, and called on everyone for “a sense of urgency.”
It felt like everyone responded this weekend, with Skubal cranking up the competitive fervor Friday night by jawing at Chicago’s dugout after escaping a jam with a big strikeout. Dingler wasn’t the only one getting flashbacks to the playoff runs of the last two seasons.
“The whole weekend this crowd was unbelievable,” said Jones. “It felt like back in October when we were at home. There was a bunch of people here and everybody was in the game. It was awesome to see the city rally around this weekend and understand that we’re playing Chicago and it’s in division and these are major games. We were really excited that they showed out.”
The Tigers’ 33-44 record remains unsightly. They “try not to stare at it every day,” said A.J. Hinch. The truth is, they’re much closer to the bottom of the American League than a playoff spot. They are both victims and survivors of circumstance, felled by injuries but revived by their surroundings. In their league and their division, anyone with a pulse has a chance. That’s what the Tigers regained this weekend, in front of palpitating crowds.
Hinch says their record “doesn’t define” them, because “it doesn’t really illustrate where our strengths are.” Of course it defines them. This is who they’ve been, thanks largely to a sputtering offense that spiraled at the end of last season and didn’t make any external changes. But their record doesn’t have to determine where they go. On the pitching side, Hinch might have a point.
A.J. Hinch after #Tigers sweep White Sox: "We can do a lot of different things on the field. It’s why we put our record (aside) and try not to stare at it every day. It doesn’t define our team and it doesn’t really illustrate where our strengths are." pic.twitter.com/0PUqoH5AY9
— 97.1 The Ticket: (@971theticketxyt) June 21, 2026
“For us to be able to get deeper into games, that is what we expected from this group,” he said. “We have a five-man rotation intact right now that is hopefully going to get healthier.”
After his go-ahead hit Friday night, Carpenter nearly delivered the game-winner on Sunday. With the winning run 90 feet away, he lashed a ball down the line that was gobbled up by the first baseman for the final out of the ninth. It was a bad break, tough luck, the sort of misfortune that characterized the Tigers’ awful month of May.
“Things haven’t gone our way the first part of this year,” Carpenter said Friday night, “but it doesn’t mean the future has to be dictated by that.”
An inning later, Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson smoked consecutive singles to tie the game again, the White Sox gave the Tigers an extra out with a misplay in the field, and Vierling popped a ball into short right field that found grass and sent everyone home happy.
“We have to earn the right to fill this place and get people to come to the ballpark,” said Hinch. “The last two seasons we’ve done that, and the fans have paid us back. I appreciate all the fans who came out this weekend and created an environment where we felt some urgency, we felt some energy, and we came through for them.”
On this date a year ago, the Tigers had the best record in the majors and an 8.5-game lead in the division that would swell to 14 games by July. Out of nowhere, they lost 12 of 13 and then cratered in September. They know as well as anyone how suddenly fortunes can flip in this game.
“Baseball,” Jones said with light-hearted relief, “is probably the No. 1 sport for that.”
For a few days this weekend, and a few hours Sunday night, the Tigers could exhale. They could smile. They could even laugh. They could think about ponying up and making a charge, with horses to ride in their rotation. It doesn’t make it likely, but it does make it feel possible. The Yankees are next. The Tigers are here. For now or for real, we’re about to find out.
“We all know what kind of run we can make,” said Carpenter. “We just need to go do it.”
