When the season began there was talk of how the Tigers should have clinched their division by September, how they should be able to blow every other team in the Central away by 15 games, how it should be a cakewalk for them all the way to the World Series. Nobody predicted that their 4th straight division championship would come down to the last day of the season, and nobody certainly would have expected the division clinching win to be delivered by David Price.
The season was filled with twists and turns and unexpected circumstances. It's possible the Central division would have been easy if it wasn't for the Royals suddenly blossoming into a playoff contender. The Tigers struggled through countless injuries; to Anibal Sanchez, Jose Iglesias, Andy Dirks, Bruce Rondon... They survived down years from Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander, as they recovered from off-season surgery, and Joe Nathan, for some unknown and much speculated about reason. They also received contributions from some unexpected sources. J. D. Martinez, the player who was so unimpressive the Houston Astros cut him, ended up contributing 23 HR's, 76 RBI, and a .315 batting average, as well as winning a few games almost single-handed. Kyle Lobstein, a minor league pitcher who was acquired in the Rule 5 draft, was called up in desperation to pitch long relief in a double-header and ended up grounding the 5th spot in the rotation for 2 months while Anibal was on the DL. Without some of the quality starts that Lobstein contributed the Tigers wouldn't have been celebrating on Sunday.
What people didn't realize is how difficult making the playoffs is, especially four years in a row. It was all the Tigers could do to hold off the Royals when they went through unbelievable hot streaks and then try to capitalize on their infrequent cold streaks. The last team to win their division four years in a row was the Philadelphia Phillies who won the NL East from 2007-2011. During that span they celebrated one World Series title, lost in another World Series, lost in the NLCS, and lost in the NLDS. The only other team during the 2000's to win their division for four or more years in a row is the New York Yankees, who won the AL East 9 times from 1998-2006. During that streak of dominance they won the World Series three times, lost in the World Series twice more, lost in the ALCS once, and were eliminated in the ALDS four times. The Tigers are a long way from being classed with that historic Yankees dynasty but they do have some similarities, especially the way they are built for the post-season.
Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's who was portrayed by Brad Pitt in the movie Moneyball, once said "My shit doesn't work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. What happens after that is luck." Although some teams are obviously built to be stronger playoff contenders than others Billy Beane is correct in that most of post-season success depends, at least partially, on luck. The playoffs are a tiny microcosm of an extremely long season, Every hot streak and cold spell is amplified exponentially and every bad start has extra ramifications. Sometimes teams get unexplainable hot and sometimes they get numbingly cold.
To say that the Tigers not winning the World Series would be abject failure would be to overlook the randomness of postseason success. Even if the Tigers play to the best of their abilities it's possible they still won't win a championship, or maybe everything will finally go right for them and they will be popping champagne at the end of October.
We don't know what will happen so lets just try to enjoy what has already happened. The Tigers are in the playoffs again, and more importantly, they worked their butts off to get there. Every player stepped out on the field and gave everything they had to give. They stayed focused, they worked as a team, they had each others backs, and they never gave up. Instead of condemning the Tigers for taking so long to clinch their division maybe we should admire them for fighting through so much adversity and successfully coming out the other side.
Let's be proud of the Tigers no matter what happens in the postseason.
And most importantly, Go Tigers!!!!