Breaking down AL Central: Guardians run, Tigers collapse - ESPN

If the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians had been going toe-to-toe for the lead in American League Central all season long, this would be viewed as a fun division race between two scrappy-if-flawed teams.

But timing is everything — and that's not how each team's wins and losses unfolded.

Instead, we get the much more intriguing storyline of the Guardians surging to a miracle comeback to make the playoffs and the Tigers trying to avoid an epic collapse.

In early July, after the Tigers swept the Guardians, Cleveland trailed Detroit by 15½ games in the division race. No team has ever won a division title or pennant after a deficit that large. On July 8, Cleveland's odds of winning the division were a minuscule 0.1%, according to FanGraphs. At the time, the Tigers were 59-34, the best record in the majors.

The Guardians clawed back to 6½ games out of first place in mid-August but then lost nine of 10, including three straight shutouts at the end of that stretch, to fall 12½ games out of first place on Aug. 25. Their division chances didn't even register: 0.0% via the odds at FanGraphs; their overall playoff odds were a mere 3.0%.

But 0.0% must not mean zero, because as we begin the final week of the 2025 regular season, the Guardians have chased down the Tigers, trailing by only one game — with the two teams meeting in Cleveland for a three-game series starting Tuesday. Though the Guardians' 10-game winning streak ended Sunday, they have gone 20-6 since their odds were not-quite-zero. The Tigers lost their sixth in a row Sunday and are 7-16 since Cleveland's playoff odds were not-quite-zero.

The panic is real in Detroit.

«It's hard trying to put into words what's going on,» manager A.J. Hinch said after his Tigers blew