KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On the day the Detroit Tigers called up Sean Guenther, he texted his parents: “My new elbow is getting its debut.”
Guenther first made the major leagues with the Miami Marlins in April 2022. Then he hurt his arm, needed Tommy John surgery and missed the better part of two years.
The Tigers picked him up off waivers while he was still rehabbing. They stashed him in the minor leagues. During the days of rehab, Guenther dreamed of days like this. He’s a fan of the Apple TV show “Ted Lasso.” He keeps a “believe” sticker plastered on his water bottle. Amid all the small weights and resistance exercises and medicine balls, he thought of what could be.
“Every day you’re going to work and you’re doing the most monotonous, just repetitive stuff, and you think about situations like this,” Guenther said. “You’re like, ‘Hey, if I do this right, if I put in the time, put in the effort, you can get back to that level.’
“And playing meaningful baseball in September is more than you can even dream about, really.”
Wednesday night in Kansas City, with an orange full moon hanging above the first-base side of Kauffman Stadium, the Tigers called on the left-handed Guenther in relief. His grandparents were in the stands, lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fans now decked out in Tigers gear. There was a runner on first base. The Royals had just scored to cut the Detroit lead to 4-2. Guenther entered and did what he has been doing lately, what this entire band of Tigers no-name pitchers has been doing since the start of August.
The Royals subbed pinch hitter Freddy Fermin for the left-handed MJ Melendez. Guenther threw a sinker, a pitch he did not use before coming to the Tigers organization, and induced a 5-4-3 double play. Two batters later, he was out of the inning.
Sean Guenther pitched Wednesday night with his grandparents in the stands. (Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
In 15 frames this season, Guenther has a 1.17 ERA. From the operating table to the waiver wire to a leverage situation in the heat of a playoff race, his story serves as a microcosm of a Tigers run that is growing more inspiring and more unbelievable by the day.
On Aug. 12, FanGraphs gave the Tigers playoff odds of 0.3 percent. Now those odds are up to 36.2 percent.
After sweeping the Royals with Wednesday’s 4-2 victory, the Tigers are a mere half game behind the Minnesota Twins in the American League wild-card race. As the hottest team in baseball, the Tigers are gaining ground on the Royals, too.
“You can kind of speak things into existence,” Guenther said. “You can visualize things before they happen, and it helps you accomplish that. So in terms of showing up to the yard with the expectation to win, I think that’s huge for us, and I think it’s kind of clubhouse-wide at this point.”
‘We believe.’ Patchwork pitching staff gets it done
Remember these images. Jace Jung sliding to the outside part of home plate, limboing his way under a Salvador Perez tag, then leaping up, flexing and roaring.
Tarik Skubal, striking out Perez on a full count with two runners on base, pumping his fists so hard he knocked his glove off his hand.
This run has been mystifying and magical, stupefying and spellbinding. The Tigers and their patchwork pitching staff continue to vex their opponents. When they need a break, they always seem to get it.
“First off, we believe,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “And secondly, we come every day to try to win the game, and we are winning a lot. It’s fun to watch these guys learn and grow and compete their ass off to the end of the game.”
Wednesday at Kauffman Stadium, the Tigers won with their ace on the mound. In this dominant Cy Young season, virtually no one has hit Tarik Skubal like the Royals. He entered play with a 5.05 ERA in 14 career starts against Kansas City. The last time he faced this lineup, the Royals tagged him for a season-high five earned runs. His career ERA in Kauffman Stadium entering play was 6.14.
The Royal scored off him in the first inning and made him work for four more. But the final line was again a staunch five innings, with only one run allowed, one walk and seven strikeouts. He threw a diet heavy in fastballs. He mixed in his changeup and seldom used his slider. Wenceel Pérez aided his pitcher with a running catch at the wall to record the second out of the fifth inning. But after plunking Bobby Witt Jr., the decisive pitch of Skubal’s night came to Perez, who has homered more times off Skubal (four) than any other hitter in the league.
The full-count changeup low and in that got Perez to lunge and whiff was maybe the biggest pitch of Skubal’s career thus far.
“If I can execute pitches at a high clip, I like my chances against anybody, no matter how many times I’ve seen them,” Skubal said.
Tarik Skubal, Nasty 88mph Changeup. 👌
7th K…and gets so fired up that he knocks his glove off his hand. 😀 pic.twitter.com/hrkxEId8aJ
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 19, 2024
At that point, the Tigers had taken a four-run lead for a few reasons.
One, the Royals made mistakes as they had for much of the series. A walk and two errors allowed Zach McKinstry to score in the second. In the third, Riley Greene hit a 427-foot homer well over the right-field wall. Four batters later, with two men on base, Trey Sweeney — the rookie acquired at the trade deadline who has given the Tigers a needed lift at shortstop — belted a double down the right-field line. Spencer Torkelson scored easily. Joey Cora, the oft-criticized third-base coach whose green lights never go out, wheeled Jung around third. For a moment, it seemed Jung would be cooked at the plate. Hunter Renfroe’s throw home beat him easily. But with Torkelson pointing to the outside part of the plate, Jung stuck a foot on the dish and evaded Perez’s tag.
“When I was (sliding) I was like, ‘Get as low to the ground as I possibly could,’” Jung said. “And I felt the plate, I didn’t feel a tag, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m getting pumped up now.’”
From the dugout, the Tigers’ fiery ace watched with approval.
“I love seeing emotion from other guys,” Skubal joked. “It tends to be a lot of me, so I like to see it from other guys.”
Absolutely electric. pic.twitter.com/fWZnypyIlk
— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) September 19, 2024
Tigers raise their game
For the better part of two months, the Tigers have won with an intoxicating combination of skill and good fortune.
Their pitching staff, for example, ranks 29th with only 7.94 K/9 since Aug. 1. Their opponents’ BABIP of .255 is the second lowest in baseball, generally a marker of good luck in the random realm of balls in play.
But the Tigers and their band of no-name pitchers — such as Wednesday night’s relief duo of Guenther and Brenan Hanifee — fire first-pitch strikes. They rarely issue walks. They generate a bevy of groundballs (45.1 percent, third in MLB, since Aug. 1) and have the league’s lowest opposing barrel rate in this time frame.
“Every time I come in the game, (Torkelson) greets me with, ‘Hey, get us a groundball,’” Guenther said. “I go out there and try to do my best.”
At the plate, the Tigers’ 100 wRC+ since Aug. 1 means their lineup has been the epitome of average. But in clutch situations, no team has performed better, per a FanGraphs metric that quantifies performance in leverage spots compared with the norm.
The Tigers have raised their game where it matters most, perhaps not a statistically sticky skill, but an ability players will tell you is a product of the team’s youth, its energy and its belief.
“Look at our season,” Skubal said. “I think we got off to a good start and then we kind of slumped through the middle, and now look at us. Trade deadline, we were sellers, and now look at us. I think that speaks to the guys in this room.”
Entering a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles, the Tigers are no longer just hoping their run of good cards will continue.
Now more than ever, they believe.
“I can’t remember a time I’ve had this much fun playing this game,” Guenther said. “It’s fun in the clubhouse, it’s fun on the field, it’s fun traveling. … We’re playing well. We’re having a good time doing it. You can’t really ask for much more at your job.”
(Top photo of Spencer Torkelson and Jace Jung: Ed Zurga / Getty Images)
