DETROIT – The Detroit Tigers’ playoff picture is now crystal clear heading into the final three weeks of the regular season.
The Tigers took two of three games from the Oakland Athletics over the weekend to pull with 3.5 games of the final wild card spot. But it wasn’t all good news.
When we last spoke, the Tigers were within striking distance of both the Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins. Then, the Royals went into Minnesota and swept a three-game series this weekend, effectively putting them out of reach of the Tigers.
Kansas City leads Detroit by a full six games with only 18 left to play. The Royals have a difficult schedule, with road series against the Yankees and Braves remaining, but that’s an awful lot of ground to make up in such a short period.
So the Tigers’ path to the postseason is pretty clear-cut at this point: They have to pass the Twins.
Even though the deficit is only 3.5 games, it’s going to be a very tall task. The Twins still have nine games remaining against the Angels, Reds, and Marlins -- three bad teams.
Meanwhile, the Tigers play nine straight against the playoff-bound Orioles and Royals from Sept. 13-22. Even if the Tigers manage to go 5-4 through that stretch, they would likely lose ground to the Twins because of the schedule.
The other problem is that the Tigers lost the season series to the Twins, 6-7, which means if they finish with the same record, the Twins will get the playoff spot. So in a sense, the Tigers are actually 4.5 games behind, because they can’t afford to finish in a tie.
Detroit did win the season series with Boston and Seattle, which could come into play in a three- or four-team tiebreaker scenario. But it would take a lot for that to play out. But it’s something to keep in the back of your mind.
The Tigers are off on Monday, so they’ll hope the Angels can pull off an upset and get them within three games. Then the Tigers desperately need to sweep the Colorado Rockies at Comerica Park before heading into that nine-game stretch against Baltimore and Kansas City.
Look, it’s very unlikely that the Tigers are going to make it. They just dug too deep of a hole during the early summer months.
But it’s not impossible, which is more than we’ve been able to say in almost a decade. Let’s take it game-by-game and see how the next week plays out.