DETROIT – History is on the side of the Detroit Tigers after they won their first playoff game on Tuesday.
The Tigers held on for a 3-1 victory over the Astros in the best-of-three wild card round, which means they have two chances to win the series on Wednesday and Thursday.
How often do teams that win the first game of this round end up winning the series? So far, 100% of the time.
MLB added a sixth playoff team to each league in 2022, and in the two seasons since, all eight teams to win Game 1 of the first round have advanced to the divisional round.
Incredibly, only one of those eight teams even needed a Game 3. That’s right: Seven of the eight wild card rounds in MLB history have been 2-0 sweeps. The only exception was the Padres-Mets matchup in 2022, when the Padres won the opener, lost Game 2, and then took the rubber match 6-0.
Detroit is hoping to keep that trend rolling, but it won’t be easy. The Tigers were always going to have an advantage in Game 1, thanks to Tarik Skubal, but now they need to get to Houston’s starting pitching depth to lock up the series.
Manager A.J. Hinch has elected to start Tyler Holton and go with a bullpen game on Wednesday, so it’s all-hand’s-on-deck, which is exactly what got the Tigers into the playoffs in the first place.
