DETROIT — The Detroit Tigers, the hottest team in baseball the last several weeks, earned an American League wild card berth Friday night to end a decade-long postseason drought.
“This team is pretty dangerous,” Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said. “We got a chance to make some noise in October, and we’re going to keep fighting for for the opportunity.”
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 will play at top AL wild card Baltimore or AL West champion Houston in a best-of-three series starting Tuesday. They have been on a tear, winning six straight and 10 of 11 to surge into the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
Detroit was 55-63 on Aug. 10 — 10 games out of the last wild card _ and then went 31-11. During that stretch, the Tigers have the lowest ERA in baseball and the largest run differential.
“It’s been a dream come true,” first baseman Spencer Torkelson said.
With two games left, the Tigers were in position for the second AL wild card, one game ahead of AL Central rival Kansas City, which also clinched a playoff spot on Friday while Minnesota was eliminated.
AL Cy Young Award favorite Tarik Skubal leads Detroit’s rotation and Jason Foley has become a reliable closer in a strong bullpen. He earned his 28th save in the series opener against Chicago.
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.
Torkelson, the No. 1 overall pick in 2020, was sent to the minors during the season and bounced back well enough to contribute to the team’s late run.
“That’s what makes it so special, when you do win,” Torkelson said. “It’s not always going to be perfect. You’re not always going to get a hit. You’re not always going to strike the guy out. But just grinding through it and and persevering, that’s what makes it so, so special.”
Taking advantage of playing a historically bad team, Detroit broke a scoreless tie in the fifth inning of the playoff-clinching win. 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 Harris and A.J. Hinch’s fourth year as manager.
“With every player I hugged, I had a flashback to some moment of adversity they faced, or some moment where we challenged them to do something differently and all of these guys did,” Harris said on the field following the game. “They rose to the occasion and they deserve it. I’m really, really proud of them.”
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.
“It’s been a long time since this organization was in the playoffs and these fans deserve it,” Harris said.