On the morning of Aug. 11, the Tigers woke up in San Francisco looking like a team playing out the string. They were 55-63, eight games below .500. The Toronto Blue Jays, perhaps this season’s most disappointing outfit, had an identical record.
Two weeks earlier at the trade deadline, Detroit had traded away its second-best starting pitcher and an every-day outfielder. Six teams stood between the Tigers and the American League’s final playoff spot. Nobody in the Motor City was thinking about October baseball.
Since that morning, the Tigers are 31-11, the best mark in MLB.