Last season the Detroit Tigers shocked the MLB world when they made their first playoff appearance in 11 years. The Tigers finished with a 86-76 record, breaking a string of eight straight losing logs.
One would think the Detroit ballclub would now be thinking they've arrived and that complacency may have set in as a result of their newfound success.
Well, one could also be wrong. You won't find any big heads in the Tigers clubhouse this season.
"No way," says Tigers' ace pitcher Tarik Skubal, the 2024 American League Cy Young Award winner. "It's like CJ [Hinch, Tigers manager and World Series winner as former skipper of the Houston Astros] always tells us: Once you've been in the postseason, you want more of it."
"You're never satisfied unless you go there again," said Tarik after a campaign that a year ago saw him go 18-4 in the win-loss column while racking up a minuscule 2.80 Earned Run Average.
So far in the 2024 season, the Tigers are living up to Skubal's words. Detroit is currently tied for the early top spot in the American League's Central Division.
Thus, early on they are at the very least off to a better start than they were a season ago.
After stumbling out of the blocks, by early August the Tigers were 10 games out of a playoff spot and their chances of making the postseason were 0.2 percent.
But then, a 30-11 run starting on Aug 11 propelled Detroit into the postseason where they then swept the American League East champion Baltimore Orioles in the Wildcard Round before they were eliminated in the Divisional Round.
No such miracle finish will be needed this season, apparently.
Meanwhile, Skubal hopes for an even better 2025.
"I've added a sinker and slider to my repertoire," explained Skubal. "They've been working well off my fastball [which has been timed in the 97 miles per hour range and reached a high of 101.7mph] and change-up."
"He's incredible,"' Hinch said of Skubal. "He really pounds the strike zone."
While Skubal heads up a relatively young Tigers' pitching staff, outfielder Riley Greene, who came of age last year when he batted .262 with 24 home runs and 74 Runs Batted In, is once again Detroit's catalyst offensively.
Riley's stat line through six games reads: 296 batting average, 2 homers and 3 RBI.
"I've learned not to chase pitches," says Greene of his success. "CJ told me that I was getting myself out too often by being overanxious and going after bad pitches.
"And he was right. Now I wait for MY pitch to swing at and it's worked out well for me."
But the pitching staff, headed by Skubal and fellow starter Jack Flaherty, is the strength of the current Tigers.
"I'm still trying to learn," says Skubal, of his 0-1 early '26 start. "We all are."
"I don't have all the answers."
With continued improvement, Detroit hope to dethrone the defending AL Central Division champions Cleveland Guardians this season.
Success in 2025 won't come easy, though. The Tigers' division has undergone a recent revival. It includes a suddenly potent Kansas City Royals ballclub and a surging Minnesota Twins outfit in addition to perennially tough Cleveland.
Like Skubal, the rest of the Detroit Tigers all seek to grow from newly-formed playoff participants to eventual World Series champions. Nothing is promised but at long last there is real hope once again in The Motor City.
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