Less than a month ago, the Cleveland Guardians' playoff hopes appeared to be unmistakably on life support. They trailed the Detroit Tigers by 12.5 games on Aug. 25 and were well out of the wild card race. After beating Tarik Skubal in yet another big moment, though, the Guardians are not only in the postseason race, they've officially overtaken the Tigers in the AL Central.
The 5-2 victory on Tuesday night has to be excessively heartbreaking for Tigers fans, especially with how elated the Guardians fan base should be. Cleveland and Detroit now have identical records at 85-72 with only five games left to play, but the Tuesday night triumph also gives the Guardians an even bigger edge, as they now own the tiebreaker over the Tigers by clinching the regular-season series.
Seeing what appeared to be an insurmountable lead in the division is brutal for the Tigers and the fans to begin with. However, the fact that the Guardians just got the leg up in the race between the two rivals against Skubal only makes it worse — especially with what that could mean in the context of this matchup in the past year.
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Guardians have owned Tarik Skubal in huge moments vs. Tigers
To some degree, Tigers fans had to be having PTSD-induced flashbacks to Game 5 of last year's ALDS matchup with the Guardians. Skubal was on the mound for that decisive matchup as well, and the results also got away from him. Cleveland began cracking the ace's armor in the fifth inning when they loaded the bases and he hit José Ramírez with a pitch to tie the game at 1-1. But it became unstoppably bad when the next batter, Lane Thomas, took Skubal 396 feet to left center for a back-breaking grand slam.
Tuesday night's start for Skubal didn't go that exact same way, but it was equally as painful. It started with an inexplicable attempt to get a runner at first by almost snapping the baseball between his legs to the bag. That error set up the tying runs. There was a horrific late bunt that hit David Fry, a short infield single, a balk, and an RBI groundout that made the game start getting away from him.
Again, the loss itself is painful, but what makes it absolutely worse is the fact that the Guardians might now have a mental edge — or maybe always did — over the Tigers' greatest weapon, Skubal. That's something that can take years to recover from, if a pitcher ever does, and we now have two instances in the clutch that look to tip the scales in Cleveland's favor for this matchup.
Latest Skubal flub has cost Tigers control of their own destiny
Speaking on the game and this year's AL Central race specifically, however, it's hard to describe just how catastrophic this is for the Tigers. This is a team that was once up 15.5 games in the division, and now they are tied with the Guardians. Even worse, the loss in Skubal's start — which, on its own, had to be a game that Detroit was thinking must-get for the win column based on the pitching advantage — gives Cleveland the head-to-head tiebreaker this season.
What that means is, now that the two teams have identical 85-72 records in the regular season, the Guardians are now officially atop the division standings with Detroit falling into the final AL Wild Card spot.
That doesn't mean the Tigers won't make the playoffs, but their brand of baseball right now appears to be snowballing into something worse and worse. They've won just one of their last 11 games, and it's starting to get uglier by the game, which was part of the problem with Skubal on Tuesday.
Maybe the tides can flip suddenly here shortly, but it's definitely hard to feel confident in the Tigers right now, especially now that their rivals have the advantage over Skubal that's becoming a bit more unavoidable at this point.