Concerning Tigers' playoff stat must change if they want to win a World Series

October keeps asking the Detroit Tigers the same question: can your bats match your arms when the game tightens? And the opponent that keeps asking it, loudly, is Cleveland. Context matters here, the Guardians are also built to smother. In 2025, their rotation finished fourth in ERA (3.70) and their bullpen ranked third (3.44), the kind of run prevention profile that turns playoff nights into six-inning sprints where any mistake is magnified.

However, this has left a bruise that won’t fade: across their last four postseason games, each against Cleveland, the Tigers are 4-for-43 with runners in scoring position, and every one of those hits was a single. That’s a .093 batting average in the sport’s loudest moments. Sure, you can steal a game with that. You can’t win a month of baseball. Power tilts the inning; singles-only baseball makes your staff walk a tightrope.

Tigers’ World Series path demands real October damage, not singles chains

Cleveland exposed the imbalance last October, and again now. In 2024, Detroit’s only wins were 3–0 shutouts. The Tigers haven’t topped four runs in seven games against Cleveland. The Guardians reached five in each of their wins. That doesn’t just say “Cleveland hits.” It says Detroit couldn’t answer, no leverage slug, no RISP conversion when the door cracked, no bailout on the one mistake.

The RISP drought also tells a story about approach under stress. Four singles in 43 chances hints at protect-mode swings — late, defensive contact that dies on the ground instead of flying into gaps. 

Roster construction matters, too. If you live on singles chains, you die when sequencing dries up — especially versus a Cleveland bullpen that shrinks the late innings. Detroit needs power beyond Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, and Kerry Carpenter: more hitters who carry extra-base threats in RISP and force bad choices. Some gains can come from within — better swing decisions, added lift, pull-side damage vs. velo — but the rest likely means adding bats built to punish mistakes.

None of this diminishes AJ Hinch’s ability to squeeze value from matchups or the staff’s capacity to suffocate rallies. It reframes the mandate. The Tigers already possess the hardest thing to acquire — a playoff-caliber run-prevention machine. But .093 with RISP is a script for heartbreak, not a parade. If Detroit wants to trade tightrope acts for trophy lifts, the bats have to turn traffic into thump. Upgrade the damage rate and keep trusting the arms. Do that, and those 3–0s can become 5–2s — turning October from a cliff’s edge into a runway.