No doubt, the Tigers have the right playoff ingredients

Detroit — It’s as real now as ever, as loud as ever. That night, the playoff atmosphere was there in all its raucous joy.

If you haven’t heard it yet, you surely did when Spencer Torkelson hit a massive two-run blast into the left-field seats in the sixth inning on Wednesday night, giving the Tigers a lead in the game and an even bigger lead in the standings. They steamrolled Tampa Bay, 7-1, in front of a boisterous crowd of 32,463 at Comerica Park, and all they’re missing is the official stamp of postseason authenticity.

They’re so close now, closer than they’ve been in the last decade. The Twins won too, so the Tigers’ magic number is three, four games to go. The earliest they can secure a wild-card spot is Friday night, when the pathetic White Sox come to town. The road from impossible to inevitable isn’t quite complete yet, but the way the Tigers are playing, there’s no end in sight.

This game had a little bit of everything: good pitching, hard hitting, great atmosphere. And to top it off, the crowd stood up in the ninth inning and yelled “Jobe! Jobe!” and sure enough, AJ Hinch sent the phenom Jackson Jobe into the game for his major league debut. His velocity reached 99 and he allowed one hit before he finished the game, and it was a moment of madness from Jobe.

“It was pretty incredible,” Hinch said. “Just the excitement, the anticipation.”

He was talking about the excitement of Jobe’s debut, but he could just as easily have been talking about the whole scene and the anticipation of what comes next. The Tigers delivered another brilliant performance using six pitchers and pounded out 13 hits, including home runs by Torkelson and Parker Meadows. The pieces are coming together nicely, setting up a wild weekend, or a wild week, or two wild weeks.

While that wasn’t the beginning, it felt like the starting gun. The Tigers have a 29-11 record since August 11, the best record in baseball, and an 84-74 record overall. In that span, their playoff chances have increased from 0.2% to 93.9%, according to FanGraphs.

From the Tigers’ first at-bat of the game – a home run by Meadows – to Jobe’s final out, all the familiar elements were there, plus an exciting new one. Jobe, the 22-year-old right-hander who is considered the best pitching talent in baseball, has only been here two days, but says it feels like half a season. Who knows, maybe he’ll even provide a big boost in the playoffs if needed.

“It was crazy, it’s hard to do better than that,” Jobe said of his nine-pitch, seven-strike performance. “Pretty cool. Pretty cool.”

Nine years of drought

The Tigers haven’t made the playoffs since 2014, and their nine-year drought is the longest in the major leagues. We caught a glimpse of the celebrations at Comerica Park last year as Miguel Cabrera made his final rounds. That was nostalgia. This could be chaos.

“This place can be electric if we can bring a postseason game here,” Hinch said. “We know what Comerica is, and we know what it can be.”

First, they have Tampa Bay again on Thursday, then three games against the White Sox. If the Tigers end up in a wild-card series as expected, they would play three games in Houston or Baltimore, none of them at home. So to get a true postseason game in Comerica, they would have to advance.

Nothing seems ridiculous anymore, does it? No team is playing as solidly and consistently as the Tigers right now. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it 1.2 million times. When a team turns around in virtually any sport, the rallying cry is: Nobody expected us to be here.

Most of the time it’s overblown. Often it’s a good team that was struggling and then got going. Rarely is it a team that’s completely written off and doesn’t have a single promising player in sight. This is one of those cases, and the Tigers are one of those teams.

More: AL wildcard race: Tigers playoff chances at 91.1%, magic number drops again

They can say without a grin that nobody thought this could happen. And by “nobody,” we mean the fans, the bookies, the media and the management that sold assets at the trade deadline. The Tigers say that not with disdain, but with a certain pride. Now that they’re here, on the brink of a highly unlikely playoff spot, they hear the noise but swear they don’t feel the pressure.

“In terms of pressure, there really wasn’t a lot of it,” third baseman Matt Vierling said. “I feel like we’re playing with the house money, nobody thought we’d get into this position. It’s that attitude that we’ve got nothing to lose and we’ll just see how long we can hold out.”

It is the right attitude. And it is the right question.

How long can the Tigers keep this up? That’s yet to be answered, as the wild card isn’t quite certain. But I guess it’s time to forget where they started and look at where they are. In addition to the major league’s best record over the last 40 games, they have the best pitchers (2.63 ERA) and the best run differential (plus 66) over that span. They have a one-of-a-kind star in Tarik Skubal and a stunning array of pitchers who just keep rolling out of the bullpen, one after another, night after night.

Magical run into the playoffs

It’s tempting to call it magical and inexplicable, and I do. Calling it magical is not an insult, and the Tigers don’t necessarily feel that way either. But it’s become much more than that.

“We’ve been doing this for a while,” Hinch said before the game. “It’s not just about a good weekend, a good stretch, a good home game or a cool road trip. This is the better part of a couple of months. We’ve had one or two setbacks, but if we keep tinkering with that reputation or that attitude, people will realize we’ve got some pretty good stuff going on.”

It took a while for the disbelief to subside, but now it’s evident in many ways. For example, the Tigers’ defense has improved dramatically, with Meadows as the star in center field and Trey Sweeney as an impeccable shortstop. The baserunning is prudently aggressive, as evidenced by the fact that Tigers runners have attempted to get from first to third base 38 times since August 1, and have been successful 37 times.

More: “I just want to be a part of it”: Tigers’ Mize continues to take the hits

The Tigers repeatedly ran around for base hits against the Rays, were flagged down by third-base coach Joey Cora, and came home safely, turning what could have been close plays into easy runs. Riley Greene did it in the first inning, Meadows in the third, and Zach McKinstry in the eighth to make it 6-1 and bring the crowd to its feet again.

It’s all the little plays that lead to the big plays that result in close wins. The Tigers have played 54 games with a one-point lead, which is the most in the major leagues, and are 30-24, winning 12 of their last 14 games.

“To play winning baseball, you have to play well in all facets, and we have that,” Hinch said. “Nobody talks about baserunning and defense because that’s not the coolest subject to write or talk about. But it’s an important part of winning.”

The Tigers possess many of these qualities, more than almost anyone thought. We should probably stop asking how they do it and just go and watch.

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@bobwojnowski

No doubt, the Tigers have the right playoff ingredients

ByJasper

Nine years of drought

Magical run into the playoffs

By Jasper

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