Tigers avoid sweep vs. Guardians to knot AL Central, but Cleveland has the inside path to division crown

The Detroit Tigers have a pulse. Thursday night the Tigers salvaged their three-game series with the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field (DET 4, CLE 2) and pulled back even atop the AL Central. Both teams have 86-73 records with three games to play, but because Cleveland won the season series — and therefore holds the tiebreaker — the Guardians are technically the ones in first place.

Detroit wasted no time jumping on rookie lefty Parker Messick. Leadoff man Jahmai Jones went deep on Messick’s sixth pitch of the game, then No. 3 hitter Wenceel Pérez hit a solo homer two batters later. Riley Greene went deep later in the game as well. The Tigers hit three homers off Messick, who surrendered just one longball in his first six MLB starts.

The Tigers received a combined five innings of one-run ball from righty Troy Melton and lefty Brant Hurter in a bullpen game. Usual late-inning relievers Tommy Kahnle, Tyler Holton, Kyle Finnegan, and Will Vest picked it up from there and held Cleveland to one run over the final four innings.

Thursday’s win snapped an eight-game losing streak, though the Tigers have still lost 11 of their last 13 games. The Guardians, meanwhile, have won 17 of their last 20 games. Detroit’s AL Central lead was 10 games as recently as Sept. 3. Now it’s zero with three games to play, though that’s better than being one game back like the Tigers were after Wednesday’s loss.

Back on July 8, the Tigers led the AL Central by 14 games and the Guardians were 15 ½ games back in fourth place. The largest comeback in the divisional era is 14 games by the 1978 New York Yankees and the largest blown lead ever is 13 games by the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers. (The Boston Red Sox were never more than 10 games up on second place in 1978. The Yankees were in fourth place when they were 14 games back.)

The Guardians will now welcome the Texas Rangers to Cleveland for the regular-season-ending weekend series. Texas has already been eliminated from postseason contention and is playing out the string. The Tigers go to Boston next to play a Red Sox team that is in wild card position but has not yet clinched a postseason berth.

Any combination of Guardians’ wins and Houston Astros‘ losses totaling two the rest of the way will punch Cleveland’s ticket to the postseason. They only need to tie the Tigers to win the AL Central. The Tigers must win one more game than the Guardians this weekend to win the division.

Tigers ace and reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal is scheduled to start Sunday. Skubal will make that start if the Tigers need to win that game, and if he does, he will be unable to pitch in the Wild Card Series on normal rest.