DETROIT -- Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire said Sunday morning he was going to get his former closer
“Our goal is to try to get to the playoffs,” Gardenhire said. “I said that and people laughed at me. And now all of a sudden, we’re back to .500 and now everybody wants to talk about it. Anything can happen in this season, and there’s a lot of openings. As long as we keep playing like this, we'll have a shot at the end. We just have to stay away from any more of those long, bad streaks. And I think we should be able to. Our pitching is coming around. We can hang in there with these guys.”\n\n• Now you've seen it all: Watch this forceout\n\nThe Tigers have climbed back into contention by following up a nine-game losing streak with a 7-2 stretch against the Indians, Cubs and Twins, all of whom were at or within a game of their respective division lead entering Sunday. Detroit won three consecutive series for the first time since the summer of 2018, and swept a series from the Twins for the first time in four years.
Their schedule gets no easier, with two games against the Brewers starting Tuesday, followed by five games over four days in Minnesota. But stretches like this have the Tigers believing they can compete.\n\n“We knew it the whole time,” said
In the case of the Twins, the Tigers took three games in just over 24 hours from the Bomba Squad, which was held to two runs in each game. Unlike Saturday’s doubleheader sweep, Detroit didn’t get a strong start Sunday as Mize battled command issues through three turbulent innings that included three hit batters. But Alexander's strong relief set up a solid bullpen effort and supported
Jiménez replaced Alexander after Jorge Polanco’s two-out single extended the seventh inning for Cruz, whose 20 career home runs at Comerica Park between the regular season and playoffs included two homers Saturday. Jiménez dispatched Cruz on four pitches before Buck Farmer pitched a clean eighth.\n\n“His confidence is going to go sky high,” Gardenhire said of Jiménez, “and we're going to get a good pitcher back for the next few times out, for sure.”\n\nTyler Jeffers’ two-out single in the ninth off