Detroit Tigers have updated their odds and scenarios for participation in the 2024 MLB playoffs

Not many people would have expected the Detroit Tigers to still be fighting for a postseason spot in mid-September, but with 12 games left in the season, they are only 2.5 games behind the Minnesota Twins in the battle for the final wild-card spot in the American League.

What helped get the team to this position?

A loss to the Twins on July 4 dropped the Tigers to nine games under .500. Since then, they have been in top form.

Their 38-25 record is the best in the AL and provides the backdrop for a story you'd normally see in a Disney movie: a fierce young team that exceeds expectations and tries to defy the odds.

What triggered this turnaround? It doesn't seem to be anything special, except that the team believed in themselves.

“Because we know,” said outfielder Riley Greene, an emerging leader on the team, about Cody Stavenhagen of The athlete“We're young. We know we're really good baseball players, and we have a really good team here. Everyone loses a baseball game sometimes. We really tried to stay positive the whole time.”

The return of Greene and Kerry Carpenter to health has helped Detroit get back on track, but after veterans Andrew Chafin, Carson Kelly, Jack Flaherty and Mark Canha were traded before the deadline, no one expected this run.

Their chances of a playoff spot increased dramatically over the weekend when they won two of three games against the Baltimore Orioles.

While the chance is still slim, with FanGraphs giving them a 10.2 percent chance according to Stavenhagen, this is a huge improvement from where they were a few weeks ago when they were at 0.2 on August 11.

What also works against the Tigers is that the Twins have the tiebreaker against them. That basically gives them an extra game in the standings, since the current 2.5 game deficit is pretty much 3.5.

The road will certainly not be easy. At the end of the regular season, Detroit still has series against the Kansas City Royals, Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago White Sox on the schedule.

If the Tigers can get through their first six games without losing, they will be in great shape heading into the final week of the season.

Minnesota will have to keep fighting to catch up. It's entirely possible that they can finish things off with ten games against the Cleveland Guardians, Boston Red Sox and Orioles and three against the Miami Marlins.