Stats prove Tigers were devastatingly unlucky in playoff-ending loss to Guardians

Especially this early on, there is no way to really feel "good" about a season-ending playoff loss like the one the Detroit Tigers just experienced. Up until the start of Game 5 against the Guardians, there were still hopes about advancing to the next round and even the World Series.

Unfortunately, one very ill-timed and uncharacteristic meltdown from Tarik Skubal changed all of that and Tigers fans are wondering what might have been.

It is one thing to at least feel like your team got outplayed. It still hurts without question, but at least one can live with the fact that an opponent was just the better team on a given day. That's not what Tigers fans have to live with, though.

Instead, they were dealt some truly horrifying batted ball luck that didn't go their way. That's pretty much why they're going home.

The Guardians got a ton of lucky breaks while the Tigers decidedly did not in the ALDS

Batted ball luck (or lack thereof) is hardly a new concept. One can conjure any number of weak dribblers that just happen to take the perfect path or bloops that find grass that have had game-breaking implications. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they suffered a number of brutal results on balls in play that, most of the time, should have been outs.

Neither team was exactly lighting it up in terms of expected batting average (xBA) on Saturday, with the Tigers outperforming Cleveland .208 to .195. A closer look shows the Guardians turning a number of sub.-200 xBA plays into baserunners inexplicably. While Lane Thomas' grand slam was a no-doubter that completely changed the game, the 42 mph exit velocity grounder straight into the dirt from David Fry that resulted in a single to help load the bases felt uniquely terrible. One wonders what this game looks like if Skubal's innings didn't keep getting prolonged by Cleveland's devil magic.

As for the Tigers, they were on the other side of the luck spectrum. Detroit certainly could have helped their own cause by making better contact across the board, but even the solid contact they did make didn't go their way.

Despite getting plenty of free passes and hitting the ball harder than Cleveland for the most part, the Tigers couldn't push the needed runs across. There were ample opportunities to score and there were certainly some individual failings to blame (Skubal's middle-middle fastball to Thomas, Riley Greene's GIDP, etc.), but much of this loss came down to the baseball gods just smiling on the Guardians, and there was little the Tigers could do about it.

Nonetheless, Detroit fans should take some solace in the fact that they were just a couple unlucky breaks away from an ALCS appearance, and one wonders what this Tigers team will do in 2025 with a (hopefully) improved roster and more (hopefully) luck on their side.

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