The AL Central race had been feeling like a foregone conclusion. The Cleveland Indians took hold of first place in early June and held a lead of at least five games every day between June 25 and July 26.
But now here to crash the proverbial party are the Detroit Tigers.
Faster than anyone could say "Maybe Detroit should sell at the trade deadline," the Tigers have gotten hot. They swept back-to-back series against the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros, and made it seven wins in a row with an 11-5 trouncing of the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday.
Mark it eight, dude.
It was a battle, but the Tigers won again Wednesday night thanks to a friend they hadn't seen in a while. On the first pitch in his first at-bat off the disabled list, J.D. Martinez cranked a long home run off Chris Sale to propel the Tigers to a 2-1 victory. Look upon it now with delight and wonder:
"That was almost like a movie tonight," Tigers second baseman Ian Kinsler told George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press. "That was special. That was something I probably never seen before."
Coupled with Cleveland's 13-5 loss to the Minnesota Twins, the Tigers are now only two games back in the AL Central. FanGraphs' calculations still give the Indians a 71.2 percent chance of winning the division, but the conclusion is certainly no longer foregone.
Such a thing is easy to say when you have a team that's won eight in a row on one hand and a team that's lost seven out of 11 on the other. But while the Indians are obviously good, they missed out on a huge missing piece at the trade deadline. The Tigers, meanwhile, are a team that's never really been bad that appears to be coming together at the perfect time.
One thing the Tigers have had little trouble doing is hitting the ball. They entered Wednesday ranked in the top five in the American League in runs and OPS, and have been consistent on a month-to-month basis.
This is despite the fact they've just gone almost two months without Martinez in the lineup. With an .878 OPS and 12 home runs in 65 games before he broke his elbow in mid-June and an .890 OPS and 73 home runs since 2014, the hole he left was not a small one.
Having Martinez back for the stretch run could give the Tigers a stronger heart of the order than they had even when he was healthy. After a modest (by his standards) first half, Miguel Cabrera is back to doing Miguel Cabrera things in the second half. Justin Upton has finally come alive. Victor Martinez has been slumping, but his overall season is more than strong enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Having a core like that should ensure Detroit's offense won't get any worse in the final two months than it's been all season. The Tigers would only need their pitching to show up, and it's way ahead of schedule.
Among American League clubs, only the Tampa Bay Rays have come out of the All-Star break with a better ERA than the Tigers. Justin Verlander has been the prime catalyst behind that, claiming AL Pitcher of the Month for July with a 1.69 ERA in six starts.
"It just felt like I had a good month with good feel, just took the ball every time I was called upon and went out there and tried to keep our guys in the game," Verlander told Jason Beck of MLB.com. "You look back at the body of work this month and yeah, it was pretty good."
Verlander's peaks and valleys over the last couple of seasons almost make it hard to believe he can continue this. The one thing he has now that he hasn't had in a while, however, is velocity. As Brooks Baseball shows, his fastball is sitting around 95 miles per hour for the first time since 2014.
Michael Fulmer has also done his part. His 6.2 innings of one-run ball Wednesday night lowered his ERA to 2.42. That puts him in line to win AL Rookie of the Year, and it sounds like he's going to get the chance to seal the deal. Per Chris McCosky of the Detroit News, there's no plan to shut the young right-hander down.
Rejoining Verlander and Fulmer in Detroit's rotation Thursday will be Jordan Zimmermann. The veteran missed all of July with a bad neck. If he gets back to what he was doing earlier in the year, the front three in Detroit's rotation will be able to take all comers.
That just leaves the Tigers' eternally problematic bullpen. But as Matt Snyder noted at CBSSports.com, it was having a strong second half before hitting a rough patch Tuesday. It may be prepared to handle the task of not getting in the rest of the team's way down the stretch.
This is not to say catching the Tribe will be easy. They're still a really good team, and maybe the only team in the American League with enough pitching depth to overcome the absence of a Danny Salazar. The Tigers also won't get a chance to make up ground directly until September, when seven of their last 16 games are against Cleveland. And despite their current hotness, their 1-11 record against the Indians doesn't bode well.
The race, however, is most definitely on.
It took some time, but the Tigers are hitting their peak. With the Indians having possibly hit their own peak already, the state of things in the AL Central may be permanently stuck on "interesting" the rest of the way.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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