The Detroit Tigers swept the Houston Astros in the American League Wild Card round to earn a trip to the Division Series.
There, they will face their longtime AL Central foes: the Cleveland Guardians.
The Guards had a first-round bye to open the playoffs, but will be ready to take the field on Saturday in their quest to make it to the AL Championship Series.
Tanner Bibee will be taking the ball for Cleveland, as he was their best and most consistent starter in the regular season.
The Tigers? Well, they are going with a bullpen game to kick off the series.
.@tigers make it official:
Bullpen for Game 1#RepDetroit | #Postseason | #GuardsBall https://t.co/dFmyfSsuaV
— Jensen Lewis (@JLEWFifty) October 4, 2024
Guardians insider Jensen Lewis quoted a tweet from Tigers beat writer Jason Beck, saying that Detroit will go to their bullpen in Game 1.
Triple Crown winner and top AL Cy Young candidate Tarik Skubal will take the ball for Game 2 for Detroit.
That makes Game 1 an absolute must-win one for the Guardians.
Beating Skubal is extremely difficult, and they risk going to Detroit in a 0-2 hole if they don’t find a way to win the first contest at home.
Tigers manager AJ Hinch had said a hilarious line before starting the series against the Astros: “Our plan is Tarik Skubal tomorrow and pitching chaos the rest of the way”.
Well, that plan was just about enough to sweep the Astros.
Will it work to beat the Guardians? It’s a best-of-five series, so they would have to expand their pitching plans a bit.
Still, the bullpen game strategy worked against Houston, as they took the second game and the series with a bullpen day: seven pitchers, including Game 1 started vs. Cleveland Tyler Holton, combined to limit the Astros to two runs.
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