Detroit lives to fight another day, and given the way this team was playing for quite a while, the idea of "tomorrow" seemed impossible. However, the clock has reset, and Detroit has an opportunity to pull off an upset, starting with game one in Seattle on Saturday. This is a much different American League than we’ve seen in the past. For the better part of a decade, to make it to the World Series as an American League team, you either had to be the Houston Astros or beat the Houston Astros. That run is over. Houston missed the postseason this year and failed to win their division for the first time in a full season since 2016. Who emerged from the American League West? The Seattle Mariners, who won their division for the first time in 24 years.
When you talk about Seattle, the first thing you have to bring up is the transcendent season that they’ve gotten from their catcher Cal Raleigh, who set a major league record for most home runs in the season by a catcher. He shattered the previous record of 48 and actually pushed up on Aaron Judge‘s American League record by ending up with 60. It was truly a remarkable campaign, but the offense around him has improved immensely as well. Julio Rodriguez got going in the second half, and Seattle was very aggressive at the deadline, adding Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor, providing them with some legit thump in the middle of that lineup.
Ironically, Detroit finds itself in a playoff series against Seattle because the beginning of Detroit’s downturn coincided with Seattle's home sweep to end the first half. At the time, we viewed it as an anomaly. In hindsight, it was definitely a sign of things to come. Detroit got completely blitzed in that three-game set, even losing a Tarik Skubal start. I am confident that things won’t get nearly as ugly as they did in that July series at Comerica Park. I want to believe that Detroit's pitching is in much better shape than it was just before the All-Star break.
Before Detroit's September collapse, when it was much more certain that they would be in the postseason, I said that for this team to make a deep run, they needed to do two things. They needed to win every Tarik Skubal start, and they needed the back end of their bullpen to be nails. That’s exactly what happened against Cleveland. You got a historically good performance from Tarik Skubal, and the back end of your bullpen was really efficient and effective.
It’s unclear if Mariners ace Bryan Woo will be available to go in the ALDS. If he’s not at 100%, it’s clearly an advantage to Detroit. I think Detroit will use its bullpen extensively in Game 1. The pitching staff is a bit beat up right now, and you want to have Tarik Skubal on full rest for the game, too. I’m not reinventing the wheel by saying that Detroit needs to figure out a way to split one of these first two in Seattle, where the crowd should be ruckus.