Overlooked and almost cooked, Tigers enter playoffs right where they want to be

The Detroit Tigers learned the difference between being the predator and being the prey in 2025.

It wasn't an easy lesson, being stalked in the final month of the season, a seemingly insurmountable lead in the American League Central in July dwindling day after day, loss after loss, until finally in late September the Tigers found themselves looking up at the Cleveland Guardians and on the verge of missing the playoffs completely -- an embarrassment that would have stuck with the players and fans for years to come, just as it did in 2009.

Saturday in Boston, after a heroic catch by shortstop Javier Baez, after 28-year-old journeyman Jahmai Jones sparked the lineup for the second time in three days, after the Tigers' bullpen finally looked capable in its duties, the 100-ton weight of expectation was lifted off the team's back, and they celebrated like only those who have been pushed to the brink and survived can.

The Tigers are back in the playoffs in 2025. Mission accomplished.

Sorta. Barely. But mission accomplished. The Tigers are in the playoffs for consecutive years for the first time since 2013-14.

“For the majority of this season, we were asked about postseason,” Tiger manager AJ Hinch said, via Shawn Windsor of the Detroit Free Press. “We were asked about October, asked about the path to get there and how we were going to prepare. But we hadn’t earned it yet. So, when the script flips and all of a sudden you’re losing a lot of games, it’s pretty taxing.” 

The Tigers may have had one of the best calendar years in recent memory. From Aug. 11, 2024, to Aug. 11, 2025, they were 37 games over .500. They ended last season on an improbable 30-13 run that resulted in a wild card round victory over the Astros. At one point in July of this year, they were up by an astonishing 14 games in the AL Central.

Since Aug. 11, they are 6 games under .500. Last year, no one expected them to win. This year, everyone did. That clearly took a little getting used to, and they just were not ready for the pressure that came with it.

The Tigers enter the playoffs where they play best -- as underdogs

How they got there doesn't matter. That they got there does.

Zero and zero. That was theme in the clubhouse Saturday night, the point made repeatedly by anyone asked. The first 162 games of the year were a lengthy filter to separate MLB's wheat from its chaff. The Tigers did enough to get into the playoffs.

Once the playoffs begin, it no longer matters what you did before. As Jay Jaffe wrote at FanGraphs, September is no predictor of October.

And so Tigers find themselves where they have clearly felt most comfortable: the underdogs. After the month of baseball they just played, with struggles in every facet of their game and so many nights where the club seemed to forget how to play baseball entirely, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who'll pencil them into a World Series run. Few will even believe they'll make it out of the Wild Card round at all. That will be just fine by them.

They find themselves with a chance to reestablish their identity as a team that may not have the most talent or biggest payroll but always played with strong fundamentals that forced their opponents to be perfect by stealing hits in the field and taking extra bases at the plate.

They find themselves with a chance to play their own game, no longer haunted by the spectre of what could happen but instead powered by it.

“I think when we stay positive and play our game, we don't try to beat the other team, it's our plan that we worry about," Javy Baez said Saturday, via MLB.com's Jason Beck. "And that's my message to them: We have to play our game. We have to keep our plan.”

This past month, the Tigers looked into the abyss and learned something about themselves. It might not have been fun, but they might be better prepared for the tough test ahead because of it.

They now enter the postseason 0-0 with nothing to lose -- right where they want to be.