CLEVELAND — Free Press sports writer Evan Petzold breaks down the best-of-three American League wild-card series in the 2025 MLB postseason between the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians, from Tuesday-Thursday at Progressive Field.
No. 6 seed Detroit Tigers (87-75) at No. 3 Cleveland Guardians (88-74)
The managers: Tigers — A.J. Hinch (964-868 career; 394-416 with Tigers; 32-25 in postseason; 4-3 with Tigers in postseason); Guardians — Stephen Vogt (180-143 career and with Guardians; 4-6 in postseason).
2025 regular-season series: Guardians, 8-5.
Top three players: Tigers — LHP Tarik Skubal, LF Riley Greene, DH Kerry Carpenter; Guardians — 3B José Ramírez, LF Steven Kwan, RHP Gavin Williams.
Key matchups
Cy Young x2: The Tarik Skubal advantage
Nobody gives his team a better chance in Game 1 than Tarik Skubal — the 2024 AL Cy Young winner and the 2025 favorite. The 28-year-old left-hander has become the best pitcher in the world, leading MLB with a 2.21 ERA over 31 starts in the 2025 season.
But Skubal isn’t an automatic win.
The Tigers dropped each of his last three regular-season starts: an 8-2 loss to the Miami Marlins on Sept. 12 (though he departed early with injury concerns), a 3-1 loss to the Guardians on Sept. 18 and a 5-2 loss to the Guardians on Sept. 23. In those three starts, he posted a 3.52 ERA with five walks and 19 strikeouts across 15⅓ innings. On the bright side, the Tigers haven’t lost four Skubal starts in a row since 2022, before Skubal began his current dominance.
Thanks to Skubal, the Tigers have the biggest advantage in the wild-card series. The twist: The Guardians have faced him in back-to-back starts, just as the Tigers have faced Guardians right-hander Gavin Williams twice. In those starts, Skubal had a 1.50 ERA with 17 strikeouts in 12 innings, while Williams had a 1.64 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 11 innings.
Game 1 often determines the winner in these series.
Whiff city: Can Tigers cut strikeouts?
Beginning Sept. 11, the Tigers ranked 27th among the 30 MLB teams with a 28% strikeout rate and stumbled to a 3-13 record over their final 16 games. The chief culprits: Spencer Torkelson with a 39.1% strikeout rate, Wenceel Pérez at 34.9%, Riley Greene at 32.3% and Kerry Carpenter at 27.1%.
Three of them — Torkelson, Greene and Carpenter — are the heartbeat of the Tigers’ offense. All three can be dangerous at any moment because of their power, but right now, they’re too one-dimensional.
The issue is magnified against the Guardians. The Tigers struck out 70 times in their final six games against the Guardians, averaging nearly 12 per game — or about 45% of their 27 outs. It’s the main reason why the Tigers lost five of those six games.
To advance to the ALDS, the Tigers need to cut down the strikeouts and put the ball in play, especially with runners on base.
Arms race: Bullpen battle favors one side
The Guardians’ bullpen is one of the best in baseball, finishing third with a 3.44 ERA in the regular season. The Tigers ranked 17th with a 4.05 ERA, slipping to 20th with a 4.36 ERA over their final 31 games. The bullpen is the Guardians’ biggest advantage in this best-of-three series.
It’s not even close.
The Guardians lost elite closer Emmanuel Clase to a gambling investigation, only to replace him in that role with another elite reliever in Cade Smith. The Guardians feature four relievers with sub-3.00 ERAs: Smith, Erik Sabrowski, Jakob Junis and Kolby Allard. The Tigers have just one such reliever: Brant Hurter.
A mismatch with the Tigers’ bullpen could decide the outcome of the series, as the Tigers plan to carry only two left-handed relievers: Hurter and Tyler Holton. The Guardians, though, have seven left-handed hitters (potentially eight, if prospect Chase DeLauter is activated). The Tigers could be exposed without a third lefty reliever, such as Bailey Horn, especially if the series reaches a winner-take-all Game 3.
Prediction
The Guardians clinched the AL Central, while the Tigers punted any chance of winning the division (and securing home-field advantage in the wild-card series) by refusing to pinch-hit a resting everyday player with two runners on base and one out in the ninth inning of Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox. At that moment, the Tigers still had a chance to win the Central, with the Guardians trailing after seven innings. After the Tigers didn’t try to win, the Guardians — who kept their everyday players in the lineup — stormed back twice for a 9-8 win over the Texas Rangers, capping a improbable run in the regular season with their second straight Central title (and third in four years). The Guardians went 64-66 in their first 130 games, then 24-8 in their final 32 games; the Tigers went 78-53 in their first 131 games, then 9-22 in their final 31 games. The Guardians’ magic seems like it’s due to fade sooner rather than later, but the Tigers must rediscover their winning ways, which combines selective aggressiveness from hitters, strike-throwing from pitchers, no errors from defenders and constant pressure from baserunners. The pick: Tigers in 3.
Contact Evan Petzold at ep******@*******ss.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers vs Cleveland Guardians wild-card playoff series