Tigers' uniquely awful late-game bullpen blame begins with Scott Harris, not Kenley Jansen

When Brandon Lowe hit a walk-off home run off of Kenley Jansen on Wednesday afternoon, it put the Tigers' 28th blown save and 36th blown lead in the books.

Jansen's mere presence on the mound has become heart attack-worthy for fans, but he improved vastly in July and declined to give up a single earned run. He led off August giving up a run but still notching a save, and going into Wednesday's game, he was 4-for-4 in saves to save opportunities this month.

But we still should've known that it was going to come apart at some point.

Before the Lowe walk-off, he also gave up a game-tying homer to Rafael Flores Jr., the rookie's second of the game and fifth this month.

Scott Harris clearly didn't agree. Despite rumors that the Tigers were looking for a late-inning reliever ahead of the deadline, Harris declined to buy at all. It was almost certainly Jansen's perfect July that instilled a kind of false confidence in the Tigers front office, but he was still an aging closer with a 3.94 ERA and four blown saves by Aug. 3.

That isn't the guy you want closing close games as the Tigers and half of the American League remains in the postseason hunt — not to mention in the actual postseason itself — but Harris didn't feel the same way.

Scott Harris' lax trade deadline is looking worse as the Tigers' bullpen flails

With the young core coming together so well this season, we've had to give Harris his due. He declined to give up both Troy Melton and Josue Briceño at last year's deadline, and those are just the ones that we know about. He was and is patient when it comes to development, and the Tigers are seeing the fruit of that labor now.

But he's also awful at signing free agents. Gleyber Torres has been fine, but Jansen? Framber Valdez, Jack Flaherty, Justin Verlander, Kyle Finnegan? Kenta Maeda, Alex Cobb, Tommy Kahnle?

That's to say nothing of his trade deadlines. 2025 was an unmitigated disaster, but he may have overcorrected to simply doing the bare minimum in 2026. Skubal and Mize trades felt like locks, but why did he stop there?

Harris also has a tendency to be bullish about the rosters he assembles. But in declining to supplant Jansen from the closer role, he bet on the wrong horse.

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