Nothing is infallible in the postseason, but with a Game 1 victory in a pretty classic 11 inning contest on Saturday night under their belts, the Detroit Tigers have to feel pretty good about their chances in this best-of-five AL Divisional Series. If momentum is nothing more than the next day’s starting pitcher, well, the Tigers have Tarik Skubal starting on Sunday night. The Mariners will be at DEFCON 5 on Monday’s off day if the Tigers can bring a 2-0 lead back to Comerica Park for two with Skubal lined
up for a potential Game 5 if necessary.
Of course, the Mariners will be starting a good pitcher of their own in Luis Castillo, and the Tigers haven’t exactly broken out offensively in the postseason. Skubal can be hit occasionally. He’s going to be pressed to be at his best against a very talented lineup with several dangerous right-handed hitters. In short, no chickens will be counted by the Tigers or the fanbase.
The way Game 1 played out may have some interesting effects on both teams’ bullpens. Both AJ Hinch and Dan Wilson used their usual closers for two innings, and while a more rested Andres Muñoz probably has another inning in him on Sunday before he’d need a day off, Will Vest has pitched an awful lot of high pressure baseball three of the last five days. He’ll be available in a close game, but it sure would be nice if the Tigers could put up some runs and help get the bullpen in good shape with the off day on Monday to tackle Tuesday and potentially Wednesday’s games at home.
Casey Mize and Jack Flaherty will presumably start those games, and won’t go nearly as deep as Skubal can. They’ll need the bullpen sharp for those games, but of course in the postseason you do what you have to do. Win Game 2 and take your chances.
Troy Melton’s status going forward will be very interesting to follow. The right-hander makes a case as the Tigers second best starting pitching option right now. By moving him to the bullpen over the last two months, they’ve kept the rookie’s workload under control. He finished the season at 121 total innings between the minor and major leagues with four starts and 12 relief appearances from late July through September for the Tigers. Right now his velocity and his stuff look good and he pitched with some quiet swagger in this one after settling in. At this point he probably needs three days off but could be available in relief in Game 4. If the Tigers take out the Mariners, Melton is a good bet to make another start in the next round.
Postseason Javier Báez continues to be just a different beast. In four postseason games, Báez has consistently displayed the best approach for his younger teammates to follow. He has struck out once in the postseason, focused on putting something in play with authority and he’s used the whole field very well, something else his teammates aren’t really doing. He lined out to right field and third base on Saturday in his only hard contact, but starting late in the regular season he’s been squaring the ball up while impacting every single posteason game with really excellent defense work.
I mean this is just a portion of the highlight reel over the last seven games. The tags, folks. This man is one of the greatest of all time at tagging baserunners. It’s beautiful baseball.
It’s hard to explain a hitter who hits .222/.260/.330 for an atrocious 65 wRC+ with the bases empty and .292/.304/.509 for a 119 wRC+ with men in scoring position. How many postseason shortstops were voted to the All-Star game as a center fielder? Javy Báez remains a maddening and very talented and hard-working enigma. When it matters most the mistakes of focus seem to fade away and what’s left is a sharpened, experienced postseason performer who does a lot of things in pressure situations that win tight ballgames both at the plate and in the field.
We got yet another dose of postseason Kerry Bonds in Game 1 as well. Carpenter just seems to have a knack for impacting big games with his bat, and in a lineup that likes the ball down, his ability to climb the ladder and occasionally torch a good fourseamer is particularly valuable.
Unfortunately, Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson continued to struggle in this one. Gleyber Torres did double early in Game 1 but he too has struggled to drive the ball much in the second half of the season and had some tough at-bats. On the plus side, getting Colt Keith back at least in a DH or pinch-hitting role helps lengthen the lineup against right-handed pitching, and the Mariners best arms are all right-handed. George Kirby was pretty tough overall, and Castillo and Game 3 starter Logan Gilbert are just as much of a challenge for Tigers’ hitters. They continue to get on base though, and so there’s nothing to do but hope some of the big bats perk up and they start cashing in more opportunities.
The Tigers deserve a medal for their game plan against Mariners hitters in Game 1. Hinch having to dip deeper into the bullpen to cover all the innings in a close game exposed their weaknesses there to a degree, but otherwise the Tigers really had their offense on lockdown. Clearly the Tigers were going to mix in a lot of breaking ball and offspeed with most of their arms. Beyond Melton’s heater, the rest of the staff did a pretty good job mixing in their fastball to disguise more of a breaking ball and offspeed heavy approach. Kyle Finnegan nearly got bit by a pair of flat splitters, while Rafael Montero just couldn’t locate his. Melton, Vest, and even Keider Montero looked their best rearing back and coming after the Mariners big bats with the gas, but otherwise there was a lot of soft stuff on the menu, and the Mariners couldn’t do much with it. It will be interesting to see how the Tigers vary their approaches from pitcher to pitcher as the series progresses.
Right now the bullpen is Kyle Finnegan and Will Vest, and Tyler Holton and Brant Hurter as the lefties. The inability to sign, trade for, or develop another really good reliever is going to continue to haunt the Tigers unless someone like Keider Montero or Brenan Hanifee steps up to give them a strong fifth arm to deploy. Rafael Montero and Tommy Kahnle are both veterans with postseason experience, but they just haven’t been good this year. With Melton needed more in a starting role beyond this series, finding good performances further down the depth chart will get more difficult unless one of those relievers gets it going consistently. Keider Montero is the most intriguing option right now, but has continued to be inconsistent in his hybrid usage and many trips up and down from the farm system this year. Hopefully picking up his first save in the major leagues in the postseason gives him some confidence to settle in outside of his normal starting role.
That leads right back into Tarik Skubal, Game 2 starter and presumed back-to-back AL Cy Young award winner. Against a Guardians club that was very familiar with him, Skubal mixed in more sliders and curveballs to keep them off balance. We haven’t seen that approach too much from him this season. No doubt everything will start with establishing his monster fourseam/sinker combo inside to Mariners’ hitters, but whether he leans heavily into the changeup as his second pitch or mixes things up more may just depend on how the changeup feels early in the outing. When he’s really dialed in with the offspeed he doesn’t really need a breaking ball much.
The biggest concerns in the Mariners lineup are always Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez, but with a lefty on the mound Eugenio Suarez running into a homer is always something to look out for. Otherwise, Skubal should be able to overpower much of their lineup. After peaking with with his 13 strikeout, complete game shutout in Maddux fashion over the Guardians back on May 25, Skubal settled into just being consistently great while posting a 1.89 ERA in June and a 1.82 ERA in July. He backed off the velocity a little bit and just dominated anyway, but late in the season, his average velocity ticked up from 97 mph in the summer months to 98 mph in September.
Against the Guardians in Game 1 of the Wild Card round, Skubal average 99.1 mph with his fourseamer, topping out at 101, and 101.2 with his sinker. He struck out 14 hitters. He recorded 26 whiffs for crying out loud. Maybe absolute peak deGrom surpasses this, but it’s just about the best, most dominant and overpowering pitching ever in terms of velocity, pure overall stuff, intensity, and command. Anything can happen, but it doesn’t hurt knowing that Skubal is coming into this game pitching some of his best ball of the season with signs of strength rather than October fatigue. Of course the Mariners lineup is a lot deeper than the Guardians as well, but hey good luck with the monstrous power pitching you’re about to witness below.
Castillo has a 3.54/3.88 FIP in 2025, but his command really sharpened up in September and he comes into this one pitching some of his best baseball of the season. Now closing in on 33 years of age, the right-hander has been one of the more consistent good starting pitchers in the major leagues over the last seven years. He doesn’t have a whole lot of postseason experience and he’s not racking up the whiffs on his fastball-slider combination the way he used to, but Castillo is still very effective and the nightmare scenario is the Tigers striking out less but lifting tons of routine fly balls into the thick Seattle sky and T-Mobile’s fairly generous dimensions and getting caught playing station to station baseball for six frames.
Castillo is a little more prone to get the sinker down in the zone than George Kirby, and that’s one point that could favor the Tigers. If the Tigers big bats are going to put some balls in the seats. Castillo is probably the best candidate among their starters. He’s going to throw a lot of fourseamers up, and mix in more sinkers to try and jam right-handed hitters like Torkelson and Torres. His slider is still good, but his changeup is sometimes a liability and he does tend to throw a heavy mix of fastballs overall. We’ll see if the Mariners try to switch that up on the Tigers. At very least they should put more balls in play.
If the Tigers stay sharp in Game 2 to wear down the Mariners pitching staff while Skubal does Skubal things they’ll be in great shape. It’s rare that Skubal gets a lot of run support, but Tigers fans can hope this is the night. Still, even by taking Game 1, they’ve erased home field advantage in this series and staggered the Mariners just a little bit. Expect them to punch back, but the Tigers have the best pitcher in baseball on the mound with an opportunity to really put the Mariners in a bad spot on Sunday night. Can’t ask for more than that after the way things have gone recently.
