{"id":216975,"date":"2025-10-11T14:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T14:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/216975\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T14:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T14:59:09","slug":"for-the-detroit-tigers-a-playoff-epic-comes-with-hints-of-season-ending-regret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/216975\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Detroit Tigers, a playoff epic comes with hints of season-ending regret"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2014 They watched atop the dugout railing with the same knotted emotion as everyone else. Will Vest bit his nails, Tarik Skubal clapped and cheered. Players looked away in disgust or shielded their eyes from the stress, the pressure, the uncertainty. This was baseball at its October best. Like playing with fire, or dismantling a bomb, or watching someone toe the high wire without a net to break their fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt the whole game like whoever made a mistake was going to lose,\u201d Detroit Tigers shortstop Javier B\u00e1ez said after it finally ended.<\/p>\n

The Tigers and Seattle Mariners battled for 15 innings Friday night. The T-Mobile Park crowd \u2014 so loud that scientists brought in a seismograph to measure its impact\u00a0 \u2014 was standing and busting eardrums and bringing down the house every step of the way. The Tigers finally lost 3-2<\/a>, on a Jorge Polanco RBI single that finished the marathon, decided the series and ended Detroit\u2019s roller coaster ride of a season.<\/p>\n

In the end, this game was all too analogous of the year the Tigers endured. They were MLB\u2019s first team to 30, 40, 50 and 60 wins. Then they limped toward the playoffs with the worst September winning percentage of any team in postseason history.<\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s classic for the ages \u2014 the type of game the MLB Network will replay during gray Novembers and fans will tell stories about a decade or two from now \u2014 the Tigers showed every side of themselves and their season. This game was equal parts gutsy, gritty, emotional, inspiring and draining.<\/p>\n

And ultimately, not quite enough.<\/p>\n

\"Jorge<\/p>\n

\n Jorge Polanco watches his walk-off RBI single in the 15th inning. (Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe back half of that game is like a game in itself,\u201d Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. \u201cWe dodged a few bullets, and so did they. It felt like that game \u2026 I didn\u2019t want it to end, certainly the way that it did, but I wanted to just keep giving ourselves a puncher\u2019s chance, and they outlasted us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The drama of this playoff epic began around 4:45 p.m. Pacific Time, under a sprinkling Seattle sky and a closed roof at T-Mobile Park. That\u2019s when Tigers left-handed ace Tarik Skubal stepped out into the bullpen, and the taunts rained down.<\/p>\n

One fan held up a printed freeze-frame of one of the two home runs Polanco hit off Skubal in Detroit\u2019s Game 2 loss.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re gonna lose again, yelled a heckler.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not a big-game pitcher, screamed another.<\/p>\n

Skubal went on to pitch six innings. He surrendered one run but showed his big-game, playoff mettle in so many ways. He set a postseason record by striking out seven consecutive batters. On the Oct. 10 anniversary of playoff victories from left-handers of Tigers\u2019 past \u2014 Hal Newhouser in 1945, Mickey Lolich in 1968 \u2014 Skubal\u2019s 13 strikeouts became the most ever by a pitcher in a winner-take-all playoff game.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever a doubt he was going to come through when the lights were the brightest,\u201d Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson said.<\/p>\n

Skubal left after 99 pitches, his tank emptied and his Tigers leading by a run. He pitched every bit like the ace he is in two games of this ALDS. But his team lost both times.<\/p>\n

Late into the night, after the four hour and 58-minute saga was done, Skubal stood in front of reporters, his hair still wet from the shower, as the clock neared 11 p.m. PT. After a game that took so many detours and routed new paths \u2014 longer than any winner-take-all playoff game in history \u2014 his almost-heroic effort was all but an afterthought.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe pitched frickin\u2019 hours ago, but he was unbelievable,\u201d right-hander Jack Flaherty said.<\/p>\n

Standing there with a camera shining in his face, Skubal preferred not to talk about himself. Not after this one. But Skubal is the franchise\u2019s north star. Under team control for one more season, he deflected a question about whether he will discuss his future or the organization\u2019s direction with the team\u2019s brass in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Will Tarik Skubal talk w\/ the Tigers about his future or the direction of the org?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not my job, to do anything other than play. Those questions should be asked toward the front office and the people that make those decisions, but my job is to go out there and play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Cody Stavenhagen (@CodyStavenhagen) October 11, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Skubal, more than anyone, juggled conflicting emotions. He was proud of the season, the effort, the resilience. He also rejected the idea that making the playoffs is good enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe standard should be the World Series,\u201d Skubal said. \u201cWe\u2019re young, coming up again. It\u2019s gonna be up to our offseason and how we attack it. For me, personally, it\u2019s to get back in the gym, get my body underneath me and get ready to go again. But I think the World Series should be the standard for everyone in this organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game had its heroes. For the Tigers, that meant players who, in a universe where there were no double plays, or a ball got through the infield, or a few calls went another way, might have been enshrined in October immortality. Kerry Carpenter went 4-for-5 with two walks. He put himself alongside Babe Ruth in playoff lore<\/a>. Carpenter\u2019s sixth-inning home run off left-handed Mariners reliever Gabe Speier gave Detroit a 2-1 lead, and the outfielder thanked God after the game.<\/p>\n

But the Mariners came back to tie it off Tigers reliever Kyle Finnegan, and then extra innings ensued. Those frames were both chaos and art. Baseball beauty and a maddening soap opera not even worth an attempt at summarizing. Both teams found ways to get runners on base. Both teams found ways to strand them there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like it was a pretty quiet game from an opportunity standpoint until we got into extras,\u201d Hinch said, \u201cand then there were runners everywhere and there were double plays and there\u2019s caught stealings and there\u2019s bunts, and there\u2019s guys picking up each other on errors or misplays.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tigers turned to a host of relievers that combined to tell this team\u2019s story well. There was Troy Melton, a pitcher who started this season in Double A. There was Keider Montero, who rode the shuttle between Triple A and the big leagues all year and pitched his best in October. There was Flaherty, the up-and-down starter who dispelled doubts with two innings of scoreless relief, complete with a double-play escape act.<\/p>\n

The final run, the one that felt like it would never come, came against right-hander Tommy Kahnle, who briefly sat at his locker with his head down but later walked through the clubhouse in a Hawaiian shirt, his bags packed on to whatever comes next.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like (we) got them on the ropes, and then they wiggle out of it,\u201d Finnegan, the right-handed reliever, said. \u201cThey got us on the ropes, and we wiggle out of it. It was an absolute roller-coaster of a game. That\u2019s the beauty of this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

To add to all the oddity, a Tigers team that led MLB in pinch-hit plate appearances played 15 innings without ever turning to the bench. After it was all over, Hinch gave his postgame news conference with Seattle fans still cheering in the hallway. The manager who is so often the picture of calm had reddened eyes, a hint of melancholy in his voice. Hinch has seen his share of postseason classics but never managed one quite like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love for this series to go another sixth and seventh game,\u201d Hinch said, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think any of us have pitching to get through two more games, certainly not the way these five games were played. You could feel the intensity because of how badly both teams wanted it. One team had to lose, unfortunately, and that was us.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Polanco\u2019s ball zoomed into right field and the winning run crossed the plate, Skubal rocked back and forth on the dugout railing. A few players stayed, looking forlorn as Mariners players spilled onto the field and celebrated one of the greatest wins in franchise history.<\/p>\n

In the Tigers clubhouse, players sat at their lockers, trying to find the right words and the proper tone. This team as a collective seemed proud of their season, triumphant in raising the bar for an organization that not long ago endured a decade-long playoff drought.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis stings,\u201d Torkelson said, \u201cbut we\u2019ve raised our floor and we\u2019ve created a new standard of what it should be like here.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is also Detroit\u2019s second straight season losing in a nail-biting ALDS Game 5, both times with Skubal on the mound. After the game \u2014 especially after a game like this \u2014 the season was too much for most players to process. This club went through hell in September, regained bits of its identity in October, and finally ended the year in another suspended reality.<\/p>\n

On one hand, the Tigers fought valiantly. On the other, they still fell short of the expectations they set back in the summer. Friday night, they made the Mariners work for every inch in extra innings. Their two through five hitters also went 0-for-23 with two walks and 10 strikeouts.<\/p>\n

The lineup as a whole struck out 17 times and walked only four. The Tigers\u2019 pitchers kept them in the game for 15 innings, but the team\u2019s lack of a deeper bullpen arguably created the extra-inning novel to begin with.<\/p>\n

Gleyber Torres, the second baseman who went 0-for-6 and is a free agent after this year, revealed he had been playing through a hernia for nearly a month and needs surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally frustrating, for sure,\u201d he said of his Game 5 at-bats. \u201cDisappointing. I think we have a really good group here, and we can do a little bit more than we did tonight. But it is what it is. Really proud of my team.\u201d<\/p>\n

How are you supposed to feel after this one? That\u2019s the question everyone seemed to be silently asking. A part of playoff history. A bright future perhaps still ahead.<\/p>\n

And yet \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cA heartbreaking ending,\u201d Torkelson said. \u201cBut an unbelievable baseball game to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Top photo: Alika Jenner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n