The Athletic's 'biggest concern down the stretch' for Tigers is a ridiculous cop-out

Although the Tigers' series loss to the Athletics left them relatively unscathed in the standings, it was a tough three games for fans to watch. They ceded their American League-best record to the Blue Jays and gave up a little bit of ground to the AL Central's second place Royals (though the Tigers still hold the biggest division lead in baseball).

AJ Hinch was rightfully critical of his team after they were swept, laying into just about everybody (including himself).

It was the Tigers' first time getting swept since their series against the Pirates in late July, and it revealed a host of flaws across the roster. Bad defense doomed a Tarik Skubal start; a bad start from Charlie Morton and blowup from Will Vest led to a walk-off in the second game; and the offense failed to show up at all in the finale.

The Tigers' record speaks for itself, but they're far from a perfect club. If you asked fans, most would probably identify pitching as Detroit's main concern, but Jim Bowden of the Athletic, when identifying each contender's "biggest concern down the stretch," instead chose to ... caution the Tigers about getting ahead of themselves?

Former GM Jim Bowden warned the Tigers not to get ahead of themselves in the Athletic

Of the 15 teams included in Bowden's article, only the Tigers were ascribed a concern so fake and intangible. The league-leading Brewers got "lack of home run power," the Dodgers got "the bullpen," the Red Sox got "the back of the rotation," but Bowden either couldn't identify a real weakness for the Tigers or couldn't have been bothered to actually learn a thing or two about the team.

It's hard not to feel like this is a little condescending. If it were the Dodgers with an 8.5-game lead over the Padres, do we think that Bowden would've cautioned them not to get ahead of themselves?

Maybe we're just being a little too sensitive to the fact that it took national media months to get on board with the fact that what the Tigers have been doing since last August is the real deal, but it sort of feels like everyone is still waiting for things to completely fall apart for Detroit, even though they've already come back from a depressing slide that had fans worried for a second too.

It's clear that no one associated with the Tigers is sitting on their laurels. They definitely don't need Jim Bowden to caution them against it, especially because they just took two out of three from the Royals this weekend to rebounding and keep the division out of reach.