DETROIT – The Detroit Tigers have announced their 26-man roster for the first round of the playoffs.
Game 1 of the best-of-three wild card round begins at 2:32 p.m. Tuesday, as the Tigers take on the Astros in Houston.
A.J. Hinch and Scott Harris had some tough decisions to make, cutting down the roster to 26 players after all 28 contributed throughout the month of September.
The way Hinch utilizes his bullpen and bench bats makes every single roster spot important.
Teams are allowed to include as many as 13 pitchers on a playoff roster, but since the wild card round is only a maximum of three games, it’s no surprise that the Tigers went with an extra bat to potentially give them a matchup advantage late in games.
Here are the position players who made the roster:
- Catcher Jake Rogers.
- Catcher Dillon Dingler.
- First baseman Spencer Torkelson.
- Second baseman Colt Keith.
- Third baseman Jace Jung.
- Shortstop Trey Sweeney.
- Infielder Zach McKinstry.
- Infielder Andy Ibanez.
- Infielder/outfielder Matt Vierling.
- Outfielder Riley Greene.
- Outfielder Parker Meadows.
- Outfielder Wenceel Perez.
- Designated hitter/outfielder Kerry Carpenter.
- Designated hitter Justyn-Henry Malloy.
Here are the pitchers who made the roster:
- Tarik Skubal.
- Reese Olson.
- Tyler Holton.
- Casey Mize.
- Will Vest.
- Jason Foley.
- Beau Brieske.
- Brant Hurter.
- Sean Guenther.
- Brenan Hanifee.
- Jackson Jobe.
- Ty Madden.
Notable omissions
The position players on the roster are more or less what we all expected. The Tigers won 31 of 42 games on the backs of their young players, so why change now?
It couldn’t have been a tough decision to leave Kenta Maeda off the roster after he couldn’t even hold up against the worst team in MLB history on Sunday.
Maeda has been a bit better since moving to the bullpen, but it’s been a disastrous season overall, and even his previous playoff experience with the Los Angeles Dodgers couldn’t save him.
Fans might think of Keider Montero’s complete game shutout a few weeks ago and wonder, “How do you leave that guy off the roster?”
Well, Montero has been really inconsistent at the MLB level, and he’s been mostly bad in big games down the stretch. His underlying numbers suggest he’s been fortunate to post even a 4.76 ERA, and Hinch probably doesn’t want him out there against lefty sluggers like Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker.
