The Detroit Tigers aren’t out of the playoff race.
Keep losing like this and they won’t have to worry about it much longer.
Detroit dropped its sixth game in the last seven Friday night, falling 5-2 to the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. The loss dropped the Tigers to 61-67, leaving them six games behind the Chicago White Sox in the American League Central and 2.5 games behind Texas for the final Wild Card spot.
Those deficits aren’t insurmountable with more than a month remaining.
The direction Detroit is heading is the bigger problem.
According to the Reuters game recap, Detroit stranded 11 runners Friday while Kansas City extended its winning streak to six games. The Tigers drew seven walks and had opportunities throughout the night, but consistently failed to turn traffic into runs.
That’s a pretty efficient recipe for losing baseball.
Tigers Waste Another Solid Troy Melton Start
Troy Melton wasn’t dominant, but he certainly gave Detroit a chance.
The right-hander allowed three runs, only two earned, across 5⅔ innings while giving up six hits. His ERA actually dropped to 1.60 despite taking his second loss of the season, according to the Friday box score.
Detroit didn’t score until the seventh.
Zach McKinstry doubled home Max Clark before Kevin McGonigle followed with an RBI single, cutting Kansas City’s lead to 3-2. For a moment, Detroit had life.
Then Carter Jensen homered off Tyler Holton in the bottom half of the inning, and Kyle Isbel added an RBI double against Ty Madden in the eighth.
The comeback was over almost as quickly as it began.
Melton has already shown that he can provide the Tigers with something resembling front-line production. Detroit simply didn’t give him enough support Friday to make it matter.
Detroit Is Running Out of Comfortable Losses
The standings are still giving the Tigers a chance.
Texas currently occupies the final Wild Card position at 64-65. Minnesota and Cleveland are one game back, Toronto sits 1.5 behind, Baltimore is two back and Detroit follows at 2.5.
That’s six teams packed into a remarkably small window.
Detroit’s plus-79 run differential makes its position even stranger. The Tigers have outscored their opponents 579-500 this season, yet they sit six games below .500. No other team in the immediate Wild Card chase has anything close to Detroit’s run differential.
At some point, though, being better than your record stops being encouraging.
You have to win.
Less than two weeks ago, Kenley Jansen was publicly confident Detroit could still make noise in the AL Central. At that point, the Tigers had legitimate momentum despite selling at the deadline.
That momentum is gone.
Detroit traded Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize with the understanding that the 2026 season wasn’t necessarily being abandoned. The club still had enough young talent and enough schedule remaining to make a run.
Now comes the uncomfortable part.
If the Tigers want anyone to keep treating them like a playoff contender, they have to start playing like one again.
Friday wasn’t a disastrous loss by itself. Teams strand runners. Good pitchers get beaten. Bullpens surrender home runs.
Six losses in seven games is different.
The Tigers still have time.
They’re quickly losing the luxury of wasting it.
One Response
For a ball club that is allegedly heavily leaning on analytics, some of the decisions puzzle me. McGonigle is elite leading off but average anywhere else. So why isn’t he leading off? The third strike approach for the majority of the hitters makes no sense either. Putting the ball in play at least makes the defense do something, a big swing and miss is useless (IMHO). Dingler is feeling the pressure of Greene being out and is overtrying at the plate. Finally, EVERY player should be choking up on the bat. It gives them a shorter swing and more time to know if they want to swing at the upcoming pitch.
At least that is this man’s opinion.