ST. LOUIS — Through their first 33 game of the season, the Tigers had the worst record in the majors, a 9-24 mark that was 3 1/2 games worse than the 29th-best team in the bigs.
“A miserable start,” manager A.J. Hinch called it on Tuesday.
That .273 winning percentage was worse than the 2019 squad’s .292 winning percentage, when they lost a soul-crushing 115 games. But a funny thing happened on the way to yet another lost season disguised with a “rebuilding year” label.
“We figured out how to win,” veteran second baseman Jonathan Schoop told Sporting News on Tuesday afternoon, smiling as he wiped sweat from his brow while sitting in a sauna-esque visitors dugout on a 96 degree day in St. Louis. “With the mentality to go out there every day and try to win that day. Just go out and win that day. We started putting things together. We started doing the little things you’ve got to do. You’ve got to play defense. You’ve gotta score more runs. You’ve gotta pitch better. It’s the little things the good teams do to win.”
The turnaround has been dramatic. Since that 9-24 start, the Tigers are 52-43.
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Nine games over .500, and that’s not really a small sample size. That’s more than three months’ worth of games, not quite five months into the season. That’s the same record as the Red Sox since May 7, and it’s better than the A’s (50-43), Mariners (51-43) and Padres (50-45), three other teams still in the heart of the race for October playoff spots this year.
The Tigers are a good baseball team. It’s a welcome change of pace for their fans, and for those in the organization. Think about it this way: With 61 wins this year and five games remaining in August, the Tigers have an opportunity to post their highest season win total since 2016 before September even begins (they won 64 in 2017 and 2018, and were on a 63-win pace in 2020's shortened season).
It’s different now. But what does this mean? Is this just a good stretch of baseball in 2021, or are there 2022 implications?
“That's what the hope is moving forward,” said Hinch, who is in his first season as the Tigers’ manager, “as we take this momentum and carry it into a successful offseason and into next season and make this momentum matter.”
Make this momentum matter.
It almost sounds like a new franchise motto, doesn’t it?
The Tigers do have momentum, and they will have a lot of familiar faces back in 2022. Let’s start with this: The top 11 players, as ranked by bWAR, are under contract at least through 2022, most longer than that. Their top two pitchers, right-hander Casey Mize — the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft — and left-hander Tarik Skubal — a ninth-rounder in that same draft — are both still pre-arbitration.
Mize and Skubal started the two games this week in St. Louis — both teams won a game — and they combined for 10 innings, six hits allowed and 12 strikeouts. Skubal had 10 Ks in his five-inning effort, including nine Cardinals going down as swinging strikeouts.
“He was awesome. That's the bottom line,” Hinch said after Wednesday’s game. “We’ve seen this out of him, so I'm not surprised. He was very efficient, pounded the strike zone.”
And, yes, they both only lasted five innings, but that’s by design. They’re both in their Age 24 season and with the club playing competitive baseball but not necessarily contending for a playoff spot after that miserable start, the goal is to use these successful starts as a learning experience, with the future in mind. Mize exited after 76 pitches, Skubal after 85.
“The goal here is to try to get through September,” Mize said after his start Tuesday, “so that jump is not so big whenever we are in those October games.”
Make no mistake, October is the goal. And not just in an “oh, yeah, that’d be cool down the road at some point.” Nah. The belief is that it will happen much sooner.
More elite prospects are on the way. Baseball America has the Tigers No. 6 overall in its midseason ranking of organizational talent levels. BA ranks first baseman Spencer Torkelson as the No. 4 overall prospect in baseball and outfielder Riley Greene as the No. 5 overall prospect. MLB.com has Torkelson at No. 4 and Greene at No. 7.
Torkelson was the No. 1 overall pick of the 2020 draft — lots and lots of losing seasons lately in Detroit — and he’s showing the power that made him that top pick. He was promoted out of High A after a 1.009 OPS in 31 games, then bumped up out of Double-A after 14 home runs at that level in 50 games.
Greene was the No. 5 overall pick in the 2019 draft. He was bumped up with Torkelson to Triple-A after posting a .905 OPS with 16 homers and 12 stolen bases in 84 games at Double-A. Both are expected to make an impact on the big league club at some point in 2022.
But it’s not just about the youngsters who could be great. It’s telling that the veterans already are pretty darn good who want to stick around, too.
Schoop is 29 and in the middle of his second consecutive solid season with the Tigers. He was set to become a free agent after the season, and with his resume he would have had plenty of contending teams calling his agent. He wasn’t going to land a massive deal, but would have likely had his choice of landing spots.
Instead, a handful of days into August, he signed a two-year, $15 million deal to stay in Detroit. Even with the uncertainty surrounding the expiring CBA after this season and the impending labor negotiations, he could have easily matched that in the offseason. Thing is, he already had figured out where he wanted to be.
“I want to be a part of what we’ve started,” he told SN. “Last year, we started something and this year we’re keeping it going. A.J. got in and changed some things that I really liked, bring some winning mentality to the guys. I like to win. I feel like I’m a big part of the group, and I feel like I can help a lot and can contribute a lot.”
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Schoop had three more hits Wednesday night and is batting .285 with 18 homers, 70 RBIs and a 2.1 bWAR. He’s not coming back because he wants to have his Octobers free.
“I made the decision to stay because I feel like we have a really good chance to prove everybody wrong, and we’ve got a chance to be better in the years to come and have a chance to bring a winning culture back to Detroit,” he said. “I feel like I belong here. I feel like I’m good with the young guys. We’re like family. That’s why I made the decision to stay, to finish strong this year and come back and try to get to the playoffs.”
The Tigers have done pretty well this year against playoff-caliber teams, too. The success of the past few months isn’t just about rolling over the bottom-feeders in the league. They’re 5-2 against the Astros, 5-1 against the Mariners — if that record was swapped, and the M’s were 5-1 vs. Detroit instead of 1-5, they’d own the second wild-card spot right now — 3-3 against the Red Sox, 3-3 against the Yankees, 3-1 against the Cardinals and 2-1 against the Blue Jays.
“We've got a great set of guys who have bought into a simple mindset, it's just win the day,” Hinch said. “Compete against the guys across from you, and if we can get enough players who play better than the guy across the field from them, we're going to end up doing pretty well.”
And they’ve done just that, with sights set high for the days ahead.
“I think it sets the bar,” Hinch said. “That’s what this season — we're trending in the right direction, but we're not where we need to be. I'll always continue to push these guys. But going into the stretch run here, we've got 36 games left that matter, because everything matters.”
