Posting this a bit late as little nugget before game two of the American League Divisional Series gets going. Last night, the Mariners got a real big serving of the Gritty Tigs and I must say I did not
like it. Here’s Brandon Day, writer at SB Nation’s Tigers site Bless You Boys, to tell us his thoughts on how the Tigers match up with the Mariners. You can read my answers over on BYB right here. Thank you for getting this going, Brandon!
1. How much bandwidth does facing Cal Raleigh occupy in the minds of most Tigers fans, do you think?
Our problem is that the Tigers are fully occupying our minds. The collapse over the past three weeks pushed much of the fanbase to the brink. The inability to drive in runners led them to the worst divisional collapse you may ever see while the Guardians were surging. Seeing them finally break out to take Game 3 and win through the Wild Card round settled some nerves, but the Tigers are going to have to start stringing together good at-bats the way they did in the first half.
So, we’re certainly going to be very concerned with Cal Raleigh. Unlike Jose Ramirez, who tends to live in our heads while charging us rent, Raleigh has a lot more help around him. So we’re not going to be able to pitch around him and stifle him the way they largely did with Ramirez in the Wild Card round. We have enormous confidence in Tarik Skubal of course, but beyond him the Tigers rotation and bullpen is pretty vulnerable for a team that was fighting for the top seed as recently as a month ago. Personally I feel like A.J. Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter will come up with a pretty good plan for Raleigh but there’s only so much one can do and he’ll probably hurt us badly at least once in this series.
Personally I think the Tigers will look to take him out of the equation as much as possible, so it’s the bats around him that will probably cause us pain.
2. What has the general consensus of the Mariners among Tigers fans been since 2022 or so? Not really a team they’ve worried about? Envious of certain players?
I think many Tigers fans see the Mariners as a fun but usually innocuous team that we would tend to root for over the AL East teams or the Astros for certain. We haven’t really been in position to worry about anyone until this year. The vibes are not great though, as the Mariners sweep of the Tigers prior to the All-Star break felt like the end of the Tigers wild run through the first half of the season.
If we’re envious of anything, it’s the aggressive trading and constant attempts to upgrade the roster that the Mariners have made over the past decade or so. Since Scott Harris took over as president of baseball operations after the 2022 season, the Tigers really haven’t added much talent at the major league level. The farm system is good, but the roster is basically still focused around Al Avila’s players and a few short-term signings like Jack Flaherty and Gleyber Torres. The extremely risk averse strategy in trades and free agent signings has been incredibly frustrating to most of us after a decade of rebuilding and a lot of fairly bold promises from ownership to spend and be aggressive when the time is right.
We’re certainly envious of Cal Raleigh, but in his first full season, Dillon Dingler has established himself as a solid offensive presence and one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, so we’re feeling fine about the catcher position. We just don’t have that one superstar hitter that you can really bank on when the chips are down. Riley Greene has approached that status, but really crumbled in the second half, illustrating that he’s not on that truly elite level yet.
3. What has the ride been like covering the 2025 Detroit Tigers?
The Tigers’ August/September run to the playoffs in 2024 was so exciting and came so out of the blue that we almost couldn’t digest it until the season was over. The Tigers had Tarik Skubal and a starting pitcher shaped trench coat filled with spot starters as their starting rotation at that point. It was completely inexplicable and confirmed to most of us that A.J. Hinch is one of the top managers in baseball. His pitching matchup game was incredible throughout that run.
This season has been the reverse. Everything went right offensively in the first half and for most of the early summer the Tigers had the best record in the American League. It felt great and was a lot of fun to cover, but part of that was how unlikely it was with Javier Báez, utilityman Zach McKinstry, and several others hitting beyond reasonable expectations. But an offseason of Flaherty/Torres and a bunch of bad pitcher signings had a lot of us worried about the other shoe dropping in the postseason. As it turned out, it happened a lot faster than that and the Tigers didn’t do a whole lot to re-inspire confidence at the trade deadline.
Still, the Tigers had such a tight grip on the division that few of us were worried about losing out to the Guardians. So it was just kind of an odd tale of two halves of the season. We were worried about how this team would hold up in the postseason just as the team went into a truly diabolical slump over the season’s final two weeks to lose the divisional race on the final weekend of the season. So it was a very fun first half, but I think Mariners fans might be surprised at just how down on management and ownership the Tigers’ fanbase is right now following a quite pathetic trade deadline.
Beating the Guardians has certainly raised everyone’s spirits, but we’re at best cautiously optimistic at this point. Just hoping that the bats come alive and that Tarik Skubal can string together two more great starts to help carry them through the Mariners.
4. What Tigers hitter or hitters do you have the most confidence in?
Yeah, this is sort of the issue. Riley Greene posted the best numbers of his career, but most of that came in the first half. Since that point he’s been striking out even more than usual and looking pretty lost at the plate. The strength of the Tigers in the first half was Greene, backed by a whole lineup of hitters posting .750 OPS type numbers. The depth of the lineup was the strength, and that’s worn away over the past month. Losing Colt Keith to an oblique injury didn’t help either as he was a consistent presence even as the offense started to crumble late in the year.
Over the last month, Jahmai Jones has actually been the one saving the Tigers’ bacon offensively. However, he really is only effective against left-handed pitching and I’m not so sure he’s going to be a big factor in this series unless Dan Wilson chooses to use his left-handed relievers to counter hitters like Carpenter and Greene with runners in scoring position.
Probably Kerry Carpenter and Javier Báez are filling the fans up with some confidence right now. Postseason Javy is different. After a good first half and a truly horrendous second half, especially without runners in scoring position, Báez was the one who adapted his approach against the Guardians and started using the opposite field. His consistent production with runners in scoring position all year, along with his usual defensive magic in big spots, has really been a magnet for the fanbases’ hopes. Carpenter has just come through in a lot of big moments over the past two seasons and built a little reputation as a clutch performer, if you believe in such things.
5. Guardians or Mariners, which team were/are you more anxious for the Tigers to face?
Definitely the Guardians, but that’s mainly a result of the way the season ended. The Tigers’ late season collapse was so steep, and the Guardians winning streak so inexplicable, that they really got in our heads. Only now is the fanbase really looking ahead. The Mariners are far superior to the Guardians in every way, and overall our confidence level is not great, but with the pressure and angst of their late season collapse behind them, and a pretty stirring rally to beat the Guardians on Thursday fresh in mind, we’re feeling better. Still I think Tigers fans are looking at this series as a bonus to a degree that might surprise Mariners fans who saw the Tigers atop the American League standings until August.
Thanks a lot for the questions. This should be a really fun series. Good luck!
