Detroit Tigers, Game 96: One thing I loved, one thing I didn't

Jul 12, 2026 - 21:00

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The News' Andrew Graham gives his quick takes on the Tigers' 5-0 loss to the Phillies on Sunday:

One thing I loved

Well, it's the All-Star break. So let us rewind to May 31 of this year.

The Tigers just got swept in a division series by the White Sox and fell to 22-38. A season that promised so much seemed like it had already turned putrid.

But since June started, the Tigers are 22-14, have climbed out of a massive hole in the standings, and now hit the All-Star break with a 44-52 mark.

Detroit is six games back of the division lead (could end up 6½, depending on other results Sunday) and sits in fourth place behind Chicago, Cleveland and Minnesota with the break arriving. A wild-card spot is just 3½ games out, albeit with a bunch of teams in the way.

It’s a miraculous turnaround for this club, and hard not to love. The starting pitchers have started to look like the dominant group many predicted (especially now with better health) and the offense that was on a milk carton in May has slugged more than 60 home runs across the last five-plus weeks.

It’s hard to say if the Tigers will keep this up and get the necessary breaks from teams ahead in the standings to sneak into the playoffs, but what felt like an impossibility less than six weeks ago is now a very real outcome for this team.

In short, imagine watching this team lose on May 31 and telling yourself the Tigers would be in striking range to chase down a division title after the All-Star Game. Would you have believed it? I doubt it. But it’s real now.

Kevin McGonigle (99 hits) and Riley Greene (98) are the first Tigers teammates to each reach 98+ hits before the All-Star Break in 10 years.

We last accomplished this in 2016, when three players hit the mark: Ian Kinsler (103), Nick Castellanos (99), and Miguel Cabrera (98).… pic.twitter.com/ckqZ9SGHYp
— Tigers PR (@DetroitTigersPR) July 12, 2026

One thing I didn't

Yes, I am about to make the thing I love the thing I didn’t, too. Funny the contradictions we encounter in life.

But more simply, a team that sits in fourth place in its division and eight games under .500 at the All-Star break is still not likely going to find its way to the playoffs.

Here’s where Detroit’s record sat at the last 10 All-Star breaks (2020 excluded due to COVID-19).

Detroit's record at the All-Star break:

2025: 59-38
2024: 47-50
2023: 39-50
2022: 37-55
2021: 40-51
2020: N/A, no All-Star Game and shortened season
2019: 28-58
2018: 41-57
2017: 39-48
2016: 46-43
2015: 44-44

So that’s just twice since 2015 that the Tigers have been above .500 at the All-Star break. And the only playoff appearances out of that run came in 2024 and 2025, both years that Detroit snagged a wild-card spot and played a full five games in the ALDS before bowing out.

And in none of those years has Detroit won the AL Central.

So while this is not to say that this team can’t buck a trend, or that the teams above them aren’t catchable (they are), it's that Detroit had to get hot for a long stretch just to get in position to eventually climb out of the hole it dug.

It will need to stay and finish the season hot, in all likelihood, to actually reach the playoffs, and that is an increasingly difficult tightrope to walk.