Detroit Tigers Newsletter: Our 12 favorite wins of the 2023 season
The Detroit Tigers haven’t had the best luck with farewells to their icons.
Kirk Gibson retired in mid-August 1995 after going 28 games without a homer, thanks to an ailing shoulder; his final game, on Aug. 10, was an 0-for-2 (including a strikeout) night in Arlington, Texas. A day later, he was gone, though at least he delivered a solid parting line: a simple statement that he’d been “traded to my family.”
A few weeks later, Lou Whitaker’s October curtain call finale in Baltimore featured a single at-bat — a strikeout — before he and keystone partner Alan Trammell departed, ostensibly for good.
But Trammell came back for another season, disrupting the perfect symmetry of the partnership that had debuted in the same game in 1977, and, well, the vibe was off. When Trammell was finally ready to say goodbye, at the end of the ’96 season, he had two hits in four at-bats, including an RBI … but the Tigers lost their 109th game, then the franchise’s most since 1952.
Shoot, go all the way back to Al Kaline’s last game in 1974 — that featured boos for manager Ralph Houk when he pulled Mr. Tiger before his final chance at picking up his 400th home run.
Suffice to say, Miguel Cabrera’s 0-for-3 day Sunday was right in character.
(At least Saturday’s festivities went off without a hitch.)
Hello, and welcome to The Last Tigers Newsletter of the Year (We Think) …
Except, of course, that it really didn’t matter what Cabrera did. A sellout crowd packed Comerica Park merely to bask in his glory (and maybe some early October sun, before we all trudge into Ford Field for the next dozen or so sullen, gray Sundays) and remember the days of postseason plans and three-homer games.
He ended his time as a Tiger with a walk (and some boos for the Cleveland pitcher, as though there was a title on the line), and then with a surprisingly nimble play at first base in his first time in the field in nearly two years.
It’s easy to forget, as we look ahead to next season and hope for better days from the young Tigers — 40 Tork bombs! 90 wins! A healthy Riley Greene! — that baseball is a game as much about its past as its future. Sometimes, it’s enough to take a second and look back on how we got here before we charge into a Miggy-less future.
As the Freep’s Evan Petzold put it in another of the Freep’s excellent newsletters: “My grandfather grew up with Al Kaline, my father grew up with Alan Trammell, and I grew up with Miguel Cabrera.”
And so, with that in mind, here are a dozen (one for each of Miggy's All-Star appearances) of our favorite Tigers wins this season (in chronological order — it turns out it’s a lot harder to choose when the team isn’t fighting off 100 losses):
April 3 — Tigers 7, Astros 6 (11)
After the Tigers were outscored 21-3 in their opening series against the Rays, expectations couldn’t have been lower facing the defending champs. But The Tigers jumped to a 4-0 lead in the series opener in Houston, blew that, took a one-run lead (on a Riley Greene homer) into the ninth, then put away the eventual AL West champs on a two-run homer by Matt Vierling in the 11th inning.
April 14 — Tigers 7, Giants 5 (11)
Rookie righty (and Rule 5 draft pick) Mason Englert gave up a tying three-run home run on his first pitch in the eighth inning, then got the Tigers into the 11th. There — after the Giants took a one-run lead — Nick Maton pulled a 3-0 sinker that didn’t sink into the right-center stands for a walk-off three-run homer.
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April 18 — Tigers 1, Guardians 0
No rally needed in the second game of a doubleheader sweep, just left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez scattering four hits over eight innings while striking out 10 — his first double-digit strikeout game as a Tiger and his first win of the season (thanks to Greene’s opposite-field homer in the sixth inning).
May 4 — Tigers 2, Mets 0
Justin Verlander’s first start of 2023 — and his first start at Comerica Park since 2019 — turned into a showcase for Rodriguez, who went eight innings with nine strikeouts, one walk and two hits allowed. Of course, back-to-back homers from Greene and Javier Báez in the first inning didn’t hurt, either.
June 12 — Tigers 6, Braves 5 (10)
The Tigers’ scant playoff hopes were dashed by a 1-11 start to June — with the lone win coming in improbable fashion in the series opener against the eventual NL East champs. Spencer Torkelson’s two-run homer in the ninth sparked a three-run rally to earn extra innings; Tork followed with a one-out walk-off “single” — a fly ball the center fielder didn’t bother to field — off former teammate Joe Jiménez in the 10th inning to end a nine-game skid.
July 8 — Tigers 2, Blue Jays 0
Matt Manning got revenge against the team that cost him nearly 2½ months with a broken foot by throwing 6⅔ hitless innings at Comerica Park, and Jason Foley and Alex Lange finished off the combined no-hitter — the ninth no-no in franchise history and first at Comerica Park since 2007.
July 20 — Tigers 3, Royals 0
Should this count, considering the hapless Royals were already 41 games under .500 at the time? Sure! Michael Lorenzen turned in a doozy of a trade deadline audition, allowing just three hits, one walk and no runs over seven innings. (To be fair, Lorenzen will probably remember his start three weeks later a little more — he tossed a no-hitter in Philadelphia in his second start with the Phillies.)
Aug. 25: — Tigers 4, Astros 1
For the first seven innings of '90s Night at Comerica Park, the Astros had one hit (off Manning) and the Tigers had none (off Framber Valdez). And yet, somehow, the Tigers rallied to win with four runs in the ninth inning, capped by the first career homer by rookie Parker Meadows — who was barely alive in the '90s — a three-run moonshot to right.
Sept. 2 — Tigers 10, White Sox 0
Of the three starts by rookie Reese Olson against the White Sox in 2023, this was the only one in which he gave up a hit in the first five innings, with Oscar Colás singling in the third. Still, Olson threw seven scoreless innings, scattering four hits (despite only one strikeout), and the Tigers’ bats pounded an ineffective Mike Clevinger for eight runs in just four innings.
Sept. 16 — Tigers 5, Angels 4 (10)
We’ll excuse you if you turned off this late West Coast game after rookie Sawyer Gipson-Long departed after just five innings with a team-high 11 strikeouts — in his second career start. The end wasn’t exactly smooth, with Lange surrendering a pair of homers in the ninth to tie it up, but Cabrera delivered a vintage opposite-field single to dive in the winning run to open the 10th.
Sept. 28 — Tigers 7, Royals 3
Again, we’ve got to subtract points for it being the Royals, but the Tigers completed their first series sweep since May with a seven-run outburst in the seventh inning. The rally from a 3-0 deficit was capped by a three-run home run by Torkelson — making him the first Tiger in his age-23 season with 30 homers since Matt Nokes in 1987.
(You can head here to relive that big night at Comerica.)
Oct. 1 — Tigers 5, Guardians 2
What can you say about Miggy’s final game that Our Man Petzold, plus the Freep’s Carlos Monarrez and Shawn Windsor, didn’t already? Not only did the Tigers lock up the team’s best record since 2016 — 78-84! — but the finale delivered the unforgettable moment of Cabrera flawlessly backhanding a grounder to first in the eighth inning and then being embraced by his family and teammates.
0-for-3 with a walk is no 2-for-4 with an RBI, but at least the Tigers were nowhere near losing 109 games again.
Rounding the bases with Miggy, one final time
Of course, before that game, we here at FreepSports did A LOT of looking back this week at Miggy’s 21-season big-league career. Here’s a few of the highlights:
How did Miggy go from a too-tall shortstop to the King of Venezuelan Baseball? Our Man Petzold caught up with the previous generation of Miggy’s big-league countrymen to find out why they’re still in awe of the kid from Maracay. You can check that out here, or head here for a Q&A with Cincinnati Reds great Dave Concepcíon on why Miggy is “the greatest.”
We didn’t get to fully know Miggy, as Our Man Monarrez lamented here, but his decline could teach us all something, as Our Man Windsor observed here.
What did Miggy do over his 21 seasons? Yours truly broke down his career into eras — his time with the Marlins, his first six seasons with the Tigers, the next five seasons and then his final five — to relive his greatest games. What happened to the players Cabrera was traded for? And, of course, if you want to know what Miggy got from various teams on his farewell tour? We’ve got that here. How his numbers stack up against baseball’s greats? Right here.
And then there’s what he did with the Tigers in his final season — it’s not ALL looking back — as the Freep’s Jeff Seidel noted that Cabrera worked hard at building up future winners all year.
Winning the winter?
And with that … we’re now in the offseason, which means it’s president of baseball operations (POBO!) Scott Harris’ and new general manager Jeff Greenberg’s times to shine. The two made their first appearance in public last Tuesday to talk about how they plan to share responsibilities going forward. Our Man Petzold has the story here of how the two met in Chicago, all the way back in 2012.
(That was the year, by the way, that new special assistant to the president of baseball operations (SATTPOBO!) Miguel Cabrera was winning the AL Triple Crown, in case you want to feel old.)
Happy birthday, Alex!
Per manager A.J. Hinch’s custom, Alex Lange isn’t officially the Tigers’ closer. But the guy who closed the most games for the Tigers — 45 games finished, with 26 saves and six blown saves — turns 28 today. After briefly losing even the “de facto closer” title following a wild stretch in early August, Lange finished the season with 17 strikeouts, six walks and a 3.44 ERA over his final 18⅓ innings (in 18 outings) to post a 3.68 ERA with 79 strikeouts in 66 innings.
Other Tigers birthdays this week: Eric Munson (46 on Tuesday), Victor Reyes (29 on Thursday), Rod Allen (64 on Thursday), Joey Wentz (26 on Friday), Donie Bush (would have been 136 on Sunday; died in 1972).
Mark your calendar
Yes, we’ve run out of Tigers games to preview and we’re not quite ready to move on to the postseason — which starts Tuesday! — either. But we can look a little farther ahead: Dec. 5, when MLB will hold its second-ever draft lottery in the Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tennessee. The Tigers moved from sixth to third in last year’s lottery, but their odds aren’t nearly as good this year, thanks to their 18-10 finish; they’re in the No. 11 spot currently with just a 4.8% chance of moving into the top three, and a 1.4% chance of winning it all. (The teams with the top odds? The Athletics, Rockies and Royals each have a 16.5% chance at No. 1.)
And beyond that? The Tigers’ first spring training game is set for Feb. 24 against the Yankees, and Opening Day is set for March 28 in Chicago, with the home opener coming April 5 vs. the Athletics. We’ll all have recovered from the Lions’ Super Bowl parade by then, right?
TL;DR
And while we’re looking back … we revisited the Freep writers’ preseason predictions on Sunday and, well … we’ve done worse. Our Man Seidel nailed the Torkelson breakout; Our Man Petzold was closest without going over on his estimation (two) of Cabrera’s homers (four); and Our Man, ahem, Ford, was closest on wins without going over at 77 — just one off! Just, uh, don’t read the section about All-Star predictions.
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers Newsletter: Our 12 favorite wins of the 2023 season
