Despite prior warning, the AL Central has once again let the Detroit Tigers get hot.
Just a couple weeks ago, AJ Hinch's club was left for dead, buried in the standings at 51-18 and forced to finally come to terms with trading Tarik Skubal after a gut-punch loss in his final home start. When they sent Skubal to Los Angeles in exchange for a pair of Minor Leaguers, it felt like a tacit admission that this front office simply didn't think their team was good enough to get back into the race.
And yet, if the season ended on Friday morning, the Tigers would be headed to the playoffs as the third and final AL Wild Card team. Against all odds, Detroit has become the hottest team in baseball without the best pitcher in baseball — and now they enter a critical weekend series with the Chicago White Sox looking to nab the division lead. What's gone so right for the Tigs over this stretch? And what do they need to keep it going for six more weeks?
The kids continue to step up
The single biggest reason the Tigers have yet to really miss Skubal is because that void has been filled by a couple of white-hot young pitchers in Troy Melton and Jackson Jobe. The former has been an unsung hero all year long, with a 1.46 ERA across 13 starts so far, while Jobe — one of the top pitching prospects in the sport not all that long ago — returned from elbow surgery last weekend with five one-hit innings against the San Francisco Giants and some truly wicked stuff. This rotation was threatening to crumble with Skubal off to L.A. and both Jack Flaherty and Justin Verlander on the IL; instead, Melton, Jobe and Keider Montero are thriving.
And it's not just on the mound where Detroit's youth movement is coming up huge. Kevin McGonigle has caught fire once again and continues to play like a downballot MVP candidate at shortstop. If a pair of rookies in center fielder Max Clark and infielder Hao-Yu Lee can keep their head above water, suddenly this Tigers lineup looks a whole lot deeper than it did even a few weeks ago. That's a lot riding on some very inexperienced players, but they've been more than up to the task so far.
Bolster the bullpen
It's been a bit of a roller coaster ride for the Tigers bullpen this season, but they've been cooking of late, with a top-five reliever ERA in the Majors since the start of August. I'm not sure how much I trust that to continue given how little proven production they have beyond the trio of Kenley Jansen, Kyle Finnegan and Tyler Holton. Then again, help could be on the way sooner rather than later.
Reliable lefty Brant Hurter looks just about set to return after a scoreless rehab appearance at Triple-A earlier this week. Jack Flaherty should be back in the rotation before long, too, and that would allow Drew Anderson — who's been nails while filling in as an emergency starter — to bump back into a full-time relief role. Add in the potential addition of River Ryan come September (given that he hasn't pitched since mid-June, he almost certainly won't have enough time to build back up to a starter's workload), and suddenly you've got quite the array of options for AJ Hinch to work with.
The forgotten core continues to mash
As this Tigers season seemed to be spiralling out of control earlier this summer, it felt like it was taking several former top prospects with it — namely Spencer Torkelson and Colt Keith. The pair had once been the foundation upon which Detroit hoped to build its next era of contention, but despite flashes of promise, they just never managed to hit consistently at the Major League level.
Quietly, though, both of them have turned their seasons — and potentially their careers — around of late. Keith in particular has been tearing the cover off the ball for months now, with a 152 wRC+ backed up by strong underlying data. Torkelson blows a bit more hot and cold, but he's been a consistently above-average contributor, and that's a marked improvement over where he was at earlier in the year. It's hard to overstate just how much deeper and more dangerous this Tigers lineup is when those two guys are locked in. Add in the looming return of Kerry Carpenter from the IL, and it's possible that the old kids and the new kids join forces just in time.
The White Sox deadline approach may be backfiring
Of course, every comeback requires both good play and a bit of good luck. And the Tigers have gotten the latter of late, as the White Sox, Guardians and Twins all scuffle to start the month of August. Chicago still leads the Central by three games in the loss column, but the way they've been playing since a muted trade deadline hasn't inspired a ton of confidence.
The White Sox knew that their one and only priority before the deadline was to add as much pitching as possible. And yet, Chris Getz's only major move was taking on Luis Castillo's contract — money that the Seattle Mariners were desperate to get off of. Sure, Castillo was great in his South Side debut against the Reds this week, but the trend lines for the 33-year-old are still very much pointing in the wrong direction. And even if he does find the fountain of youth, there remain tons of questions about the viability of this rotation moving forward.
The White Sox rank 24th in rotation ERA since the start of August, and the numbers don't get all that much better if you stretch it back to July. Davis Martin has come crashing back to Earth, and none of the team's top prospects have been ready to pick up the slack. Beyond Sean Burke and Anthony Kay, it's tough to trust anybody in this rotation, and that puts strain on the bullpen and a young lineup that they might not be able to bear.
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