The Detroit Tigers have managed to avoid complete disaster this week, though they’re still in danger of historic disaster.
With a 2-1 win over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday, the Tigers clinched a second-straight playoff berth. That leaves only one more AL playoff spot available, which will be filled by either the Cleveland Guardians or Houston Astros.
The Guardians are currently a game up on Houston and hold the tiebreaker, so their magic number is one with two games to play for both teams.
The bigger question is what will happen in the AL Central race between the Guardians and Tigers, which has gone from non-competitive to perhaps the biggest comeback in MLB history in the span of less than three weeks.
The Tigers’ win on Saturday puts them a half-game up on Cleveland, who play the eliminated Texas Rangers later in the day. The Guardians hold the tiebreaker, so they can re-take the effective lead with a win.
The Tigers enjoyed their postseason clinch. (Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
Essentially, a Guardians win on Saturday means they win the Central if they either win or the Tigers lose. If they lose on Saturday, it’s the opposite: the Tigers take a one-game lead going into Sunday and will only need to win or have the Guardians lose. It’s not a situation anyone envisioned when the Tigers were up 15.5 games in July, but the division is still a coin flip for now.
At stake is playoff positioning, assuming Cleveland doesn’t completely crash out this weekend. Detroit can catch the Red Sox for the second wild-card spot with a win on Sunday, and the Guardians would too with wins in their final two games. In that situation, the Tigers face the Yankees in the wild-card around.
If the Red Sox hold onto the second wild-card spot, Detroit and Cleveland would face each other to begin the playoffs, with home-field advantage going to the AL Central champion.
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