On July 8, the Cleveland Guardians were 15.5 games back from the Detroit Tigers. On Sept. 10, they were still 9.5 games back from the Tigers.
On Wednesday, they moved one game ahead of the Tigers.
With a 5-1 win over the Tigers on Wednesday, the Guardians seized sole control of the AL Central with four games left in the season, placing themselves on the cusp of the biggest comeback in the standings in the history of MLB. The largest deficit a team has ever made up in the standings is 15 games, a record held by the 1914 Boston Braves.
The 86-72 Guardians also hold the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Tigers, making their lead a de facto two-game advantage.
As recently as two weeks ago, the Guardians had a 0.1% chance to win the division in Fangraphs’ playoff odds. Those odds have shifted so much that BetMGM has them as a -700 favorite to take the Central as of Wednesday night.
José Ramírez hit a two-run double in Cleveland’s victory Wednesday against Detroit. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
(Jason Miller via Getty Images)
Cleveland has won 17 of its past 19 games, while Detroit has lost 11 of its past 12. They are two teams respectively playing some of the best and worst baseball the league has seen this season, and the Tigers are providing very few signs the tide will reverse in the next few days.
It’s hard to overstate just how out-of-nowhere this Guardians run is. They traded away starting pitcher Shane Bieber and reliever Paul Sewald, the latter to the Tigers, at the MLB trade deadline. They have the sixth-lowest payroll in MLB. Even with this run, they still have a negative run differential, with the second-worst offense in baseball by batting average.
And now they are on the verge of sweeping the Tigers in the biggest series of the season, after winning 5-2 on Tuesday in a game where Detroit started the presumptive Cy Young winner in Tarik Skubal.
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