Tigers fans might owe Scott Harris a massive apology when all is said and done

For a long stretch of the season, it looked like Tigers fans who wanted to come after Scott Harris with pitchforks had a number of very good reasons to do so. The Tigers came out of April with a winning record, third in the AL Central and right on the heels of the second-place Royals. However, they slipped below .500 in May and stayed that way through June and July. The pitchforks, if they'd been tentatively set down in April, were coming out again.

It makes sense. Harris and Tigers ownership refused to spend money on high-leverage position players in the offseason, and the pitchers they did pick up — Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty — were gambles. Flaherty has worked out, Maeda really hasn't, and the two veteran pickups, Mark Canha and Gio Urshela, are both playing for other teams now.

The Tigers' biggest move was giving Colt Keith a six-year contract extension before he ever stepped up to the plate in a major league game. Other than that, the Tigers did have some promising pieces: Tarik Skubal, if he could stay healthy; Riley Greene, if he could stay healthy; Kerry Carpenter, if he could stay healthy. By the end of May, optimism was low for the 2024 Tigers.

Last Tuesday, however, the young, scrappy Tigers brought their record above .500 for the first time since June 4.

Against all odds, Scott Harris' long-term strategy for the Tigers seems to be working

The Tigers made it back up to .500 with a decisive sweep of the White Sox in Chicago over the weekend. They headed back to Comerica to host the Angels and extended their winning streak to six games before dropping the finale heading into the weekend Red Sox series.

The lineup looks pretty different now than it did at the end of the season; they not only lost Canha and Urshela, but have called up multiple prospects since the beginning of the season. Jace Jung and Trey Sweeney are the big names now, but Justyn-Henry Malloy, Wenceel Pérez, and Bligh Madris have also all been up this year.

With so many players untested at the major league level playing every day and the Tigers still resistant to spending money in the coming offseason, the Tigers have given fans every reason to be upset. However, it's getting harder to be upset when they're actually winning. The Tigers look like a winning team that's capable of going the distance next season if they make the right additions. Harris' plan is actually working (for now), despite every indication that it wasn't going to.

We'll reserve full apologies for a little while still, but for now he gets a half-hearted sorry, which can be rightfully revoked if the Tigers can't look this good again next season.