DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Tigers earned an AL wild card berth on Friday night, ending a decade-long postseason drought.
Detroit clinched a spot in the playoffs with a 4-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, who set a modern major league record with their 121st loss.
The Tigers have been on a tear, winning six straight and 10 of 11 to surge into the playoffs and eliminate the defending AL Central champion Minnesota Twins from the race.
Since Aug. 11, when Detroit was eight games under .500 and counted out of contention, it has been the hottest team in the majors with 31 wins in 42 games with the lowest ERA in baseball and the largest run differential.
AL Cy Young Award favorite Tarik Skubal leads Detroit’s rotation and Jason Foley has become a reliable closer in a strong bullpen.
Riley Greene, an All-Star outfielder, is the team’s top player in a lineup that gets timely hitting from the top to the bottom.
Taking advantage of playing a historically bad team, Detroit broke a scoreless tie in the fifth inning Friday night. Jake Rogers scored when Jared Shuster was charged with a wild pitch even though the ball didn’t hit the dirt just below catcher Korey Lee’s glove.
Greene put Detroit ahead 3-1 with a double in the seventh, and Chicago helped the home team’s cause again later in the inning when Fraser Ellard threw the team’s third wild pitch of the night.
Detroit went into the season expecting to contend for a spot in the playoffs in a second full season under president of basketball operations Scott Harris and A.J. Hinch’s fourth year as manager.
The Tigers started strong, winning six of their first seven games. They had a winning record until mid-May, when the team started to slide in the standings.
They appeared to be out of pitching at the end of July when Kenta Maeda was demoted to the bullpen, Casey Mize and Reese Olson were injured and Jack Flaherty was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Each time it looked like the Tigers might rally, they would fail to sustain success and many fans in the state turned their attention to football.
Hinch got creative, rolling with a rotation of Skubal and rookie Keider Montero while relying on the bullpen to pitch entire games such as the series opener against the White Sox in front of 44,435 fans at Comerica Park.
Skubal and Montero have combined to go 11-3 since August 1, but only one other starting pitcher has won a game, and that was Brant Hurter against the Los Angeles Angels a month ago.
The Motor City’s baseball team salvaged the season and revived interest, drawing big crowds after closing recent seasons in a mostly empty ballpark.