As Midwest neighbors and mostly friendly rivals, Detroit and Cleveland have faced each other 2,326 times since their first game on May 3, 1901.
However, they have never met in the postseason over the past 123 years. That is about to change on Saturday. It’s finally happening.
“This will be the best commute in my playoff history,” joked Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, referring to the short flight over Lake Erie. “Two proud cities in a great part of the country, more so in the summer than the winter.
You’re going to see packed stadiums on both sides. It’s good for baseball.” Welcome to the Surprise Series.
The Tigers and Guardians are two of the three AL Central teams still competing in these playoffs, along with the wealthy New York Yankees. Both teams entered 2024 with low expectations, but they will meet in Game 1 of the AL Division Series at Progressive Field in a matchup that seemed unlikely just weeks ago.
Cleveland will start Tanner Bibee for the opener, while Hinch will counter with Tyler Holton before using his bullpen in a strategy he calls “pitching chaos,” which helped turn around Detroit’s season.
When the Tigers last visited Progressive Field in late July, they were five games below .500 and 14 games behind first-place Cleveland in the division. They were also on the verge of making trades that suggested they were giving up.
From the outside, things looked bleak.
But the Tigers believed in their team, and with the boost from some minor leaguers and the return of key players, they have become the hottest—and most dangerous—team in baseball.
Detroit finished strong with a record of 31-13 to secure a wild-card spot, then swept AL West champion Houston on their home field to move forward.
Hinch smiled when asked if he could have imagined returning to Cleveland in October for a chance at the ALCS. He knew there was talent in his team, he just needed to find a way to bring it out.
“We believed in our talent. We believed in our young players,” he said. “We felt like we were getting better. A couple of big wins here creates a little more belief, and then you win a tough series against playoff-caliber teams, and that creates even more belief.
“And you look up, and we were right in the thick of things as we got into the middle of September. Still, I thought a lot of people were wondering when it was going to fade, when it was going to fall off, when it was going to be a nice story but maybe not our time. But that was all outside our building.
“So we just kept at it and found ourselves in a really good position to make it to October and get to the first playoff series in a while.”
Now that they’ve made it this far, the Tigers don’t want to stop. The same goes for the Guardians, who have spent the past week resting after clinching an unexpected No. 2 seed.
While many in baseball were surprised by Detroit’s late-season surge, Cleveland’s players could see that the Tigers were doing well. The Guardians won the season series 7-6, but were outscored overall.
“They played us tough all year and we were saying how good that team was,” said catcher Austin Hedges. “To go 7-6 against them, especially at a time of the year when we were rolling through everybody.
They were playing some of the toughest baseball against us. We knew how good they were. They just weren’t finishing some games, and once they did, it showed.”
