Tigers force Yankees bullpen to make hilariously embarrassing history in 12-2 rout

The Tigers’ series against the Yankees was supposed to be one of the most difficult series left in their schedule, other than the three games they have to play against the Red Sox to wrap up the regular season. In between are series against the Marlins, Guardians, Braves, and Guardians again — all below-.500 teams.

You don't have to be a Yankees fan or even an active Yankees hater to know that New York has a very flawed team, but Tigers fans saw it on full display on Tuesday night.

Aaron Judge kicked off the scoring with a solo homer in the bottom of the first off of Tigers starter Casey Mize; in doing so, Judge passed Yogi Berra on the Yankees' all-time home run leaderboard. Cody Bellinger made it 2-0 in the fourth with another solo shot, but they were the only two hits Mize had given up by that point.

Parker Meadows evened the score with a two-run shot off of Yankees starter Will Warren in the top of the fifth. The rest of that inning and the entirety of the sixth passed without issue, making it look like this one could be tense and close through all nine innings.

By the end of the seventh, however, every single batter in the Tigers' lineup had scored — eight scored before the Yankees recorded their first out — and they'd forced New York to use three different relievers.

Per Stathead's Katie Sharp, it was "the first time in franchise history the Yankees had two pitchers allow four-plus runs and get zero outs in a game."

Tigers work tough at-bats, let Yankees destroy themselves in one-of-a-kind seventh inning on Tuesday

Fernando Cruz took the ball from Warren for the seventh, and his night went as follows: Riley Greene ground-rule double, Spencer Torkelson walk, Wenceel Pérez walk to load the bases, Parker Meadows single (Greene scored), Dillon Dingler walk (Torkelson scored).

Cruz was replaced by Mark Leiter Jr. with the bases still loaded and no one out, and Trey Sweeney tacked on another run when Anthony Volpe tried and failed to catch a pop up into shallow center field. Leiter hit Colt Keith to bring in another run, walked Gleyber Torres to force in another, threw a wild pitch to Kerry Carpenter to allow the Tigers' sixth run of the inning to score, and then Carpenter tripled to clear the bases. 10-2, Tigers.

Leiter was yanked and replaced by Tim Hill, who finally got New York's first out of the inning on a Riley Greene groundout. The Yankees intentionally walked Torkelson, but Pérez brought home the Tigers' last run of the inning on an RBI groundout that beat Tork to second but scored Carpenter.

That wasn't even it — Greene got an RBI single off of Paul Blackburn in the eighth to bring the final score to 12-2. Newly minted bullpen member Chris Paddack took care of all of the last three innings and gave up zero hits while striking out four.

Credit, for lack of a better term, probably goes more to the Yankees' bullpen for their epic implosion, but the Tigers were patient in that seventh inning. They let New York make mistakes for them. Even if the Tigs ultimately lose the next two games, their win in the opener will be all anyone remembers about this series.