A.J. Hinch led the Houston Astros to a championship in 2017, and the last postseason game he managed was their loss in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series.
In January the following year, he was suspended for a year by Major League Baseball and fired the same day due to his involvement in Houston’s sign-stealing scandal.
Now, Hinch returns to the playoffs on Tuesday with the Detroit Tigers in their first postseason appearance in ten years. They will face the AL West champion Astros in Game 1 of a best-of-three Wild Card Series. Detroit’s ace Tarik Skubal (18-4, 2.39 ERA) will pitch against fellow left-hander Framber Valdez (15-7, 2.91) in the opener.
Hinch, who has been managing the Tigers since 2021, emphasizes that this series is not about his redemption.
“I’m not proud of the story to get here,” Hinch said Monday before the Tigers practiced at Minute Maid Park. “I’ve owned up to that and I will continue to do that.
I’m very sorry for how it all went down. But all I had was the next opportunity to try to make it better and try to do my part to make this happen as fast as possible for the Detroit Tigers.”
“And that group that’s in the clubhouse over there waiting to go work out has worked tirelessly to get to feel this feeling,” he added.
The Tigers were ten games behind the last AL wild-card spot on August 10, but they went 31-13 after that to secure their playoff spot for the first time since 2014.
Now, they will face a Houston team that has been in the playoffs for eight straight years. Detroit outfielder Riley Greene believes their journey will help them this week.
“I feel like we’ve been playing playoff baseball since August,” he said. “We’re young and all we really want to do is win and we’re doing whatever we can to win.”
The Astros also had a tough road to the playoffs this season. Houston bounced back from a 7-19 start to win its fourth straight AL West title and its seventh in eight years, only missing out during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
