10/11/2025
A good reminder of why we watch our Detroit Tigers! ⚾️❤️🐅
These Tigers will give you heartburn.
These Tigers will give you anxiety.
These Tigers will give you chills.
Friday night— heck, early Saturday morning— is why you watch this torturous, glorious pastime with gnawed fingernails, a clenched posterior pucker and tapping toes gnarled. The chest heaves and the teeth grind. Every pitch a boa constrictor around your rib cage, tightening.
Tigers. Mariners. Game 5– winner to the ALCS. That’s all. Just a divisional series. No biggie.
Yeah right.
Be honest. You felt dread through four innings. The Tigers, as they did in Game 4, looked clueless against Seattle starter Kirby, who was somehow matching Detroit’s ace Tarik Skubal (who for his part was throwing high octane gas and despite surrendering a freak run after a sleepy stolen base suddenly struck out seven Mariners in a row). That’s an all-time postseason record, if you’re scoring at home.
And then, well, Kerry Carpenter did what Kerry Carpenter does. Captain Clutch parked one in the seats just two relief pitches after Seattle pulled Kirby. 2-1 Tigers, suddenly awake and prowling,
Chills and thrills, courtesy of Skubal touching 101 mph as he fireballed the M’s MVP Cal Raleigh into dust and stormed off the mound roaring spittle into the air like a victorious gladiator. Still 2-1 after 6 innings.
And then came the suffocating anxiety after the Tigers bullpen matched the Mariners relievers for initial generosity. Initial is a key word, as we are about to cover.
2-2. Tied. It’s time for both teams bullpens to go absolutely lights out for excruciating inning after inning.
Will Vest sets the tone. Two scoreless innings. Four strikeouts. A billion points of sheer aura. Extra innings here we come.
10th inning tied. 11th inning tied. 12th inning tied.
Both teams threatening. Both teams stymied. Gut wrenching. Aorta straining. Hair whitening.
Men left on base, men left in scoring position, men in the stands begging the almighty for divine favor.
Be honest. This is why you watch through your fingers. This is why you traded baseball cards 40+ years ago. This is why you named your dog Kaline, or Gibby or Magglio.
The Tigers threaten and appear sure to score. Pffft.
The Mariners threaten and appear sure to walk off win. Pffft.
13th inning. Tied.
“We are watching certainly one of the greatest postseason games of this century,” the FOX announcers tell us, needlessly so but still fun to hear.
14th inning. Tied.
Are you not entertained? Yes. Oh yes yes yes we are entertained. Flaherty escaping jams, Dingler firing a dart to stop the winning run at second.
15th inning. Tied. And then…
And then, it wasn’t.
A Tigers season that once seemed destined to end with a World Series appearance is over. Mariners win, 3-2.
This is baseball. Heartburn, anxiety, chills. And heartbreak.
And yet we come back again and again. For the possibility we might witness a single winner take all game for the ages, lasting 15 innings. For the history and the emotions. For the ride.
For the Tigers. Always our team, win or lose. Always.
