Doubt the Tigers at your own risk, they're not worried

The Brewers are such a great story this season, in a great baseball city. Everybody can see that. But so, too, are the Tigers, who still think their kids can do in baseball what the kids from the Oklahoma City Thunder did in pro basketball this past season, and that's go all the way. The Brewers have a big lead in the NL Central. The Tigers have a bigger lead in the AL Central, 9 1/2 games on Sept. 1.

Overall, the Tigers’ record is just five games worse than the Brewers heading into the Labor Day schedule. And imagine what everything would look like if the Tigers hadn’t suddenly blown all four tires in July and lost 12 out of 13 games. But that happened, absolutely. It is part of the Tigers' permanent record. But around that stretch, which really did come out of nowhere, A.J. Hinch’s team has been the best in baseball. They’ve actually been balling this way for more than a year.

The Tigers won again on Sunday, against the Royals, and extended their lead over them a little more. Tarik Skubal, as much of an ace this year as he was last year, won again. His record is now 12-4. His ERA is 2.18. He is doing for Hinch’s team what Garrett Crochet has been doing for the Red Sox all season long.

Colt Keith, age 24, knocked in a run. Gleyber Torres knocked in a run. Despite coming to the Tigers as a veteran Yankee, Torres doesn’t turn 29 until December. Riley Greene, the Tigers’ hitting star, scored a run. He’ll be 25 on the final day of the regular season. Wenceel Pérez, 25, got a couple of hits. Skubal, in case you were wondering, is still just 28 years old. The Tigers got him five runs on Sunday when they only needed one.

They’ve now won more games than the Blue Jays. More than the Yankees, Red Sox and Astros. More than the Dodgers. Around blowing those tires and briefly ending up in that July ditch, Hinch’s team has basically played .667 baseball. They keep grinding away and keep winning, somehow doing that on the fringes of the spotlight despite the lead they have over the Royals. Maybe the lights will get a little brighter over the next couple of weeks when they face both New York teams, first the Mets at Comerica, then the Yankees next week at Yankee Stadium.

Here is what Hinch, so clearly one of the best and most creative managers in the sport, told me on Sunday night after the Tigers-Royals series:

“I’m really proud of our group, how we reset after a good series and also the ones we struggle in. Our consistency in how we approach the marathon of a schedule is a sneaky strength of ours.”

It is another way of Hinch talking about how resilient his young team is, and how the Tigers didn’t let one awful stretch ruin their season. Because it could have. All over baseball, we have seen good teams go through bad times this season. It happened over months with the Yankees. The Mets had an awful stretch of their own, came out of it to sweep the Phillies at home last week, then promptly lost three of four at home to the Marlins.

The Dodgers had a prolonged slump. The Padres made a run at the Dodgers and fell back. But it was the Tigers who suddenly went into a 1-12 tailspin. Once they did, people immediately seemed to develop amnesia about all the winning they’ve done, most in baseball, since they were still eight games under .500 in the middle of last August. Somehow that no longer mattered very much when they got knocked down. At the time, it was almost as if people expected them to stay down.

But as young as so many of the Tigers are, they have come back again, in this season when they’re coming back from the disappointment of losing Game 5 of the AL Division Series to the Guardians last October even with Skubal on the mound that day. They clearly have a lot of sneaky strengths. And perhaps not so sneaky at all.

They briefly stumbled again last week in West Sacramento, getting swept by the Athletics. But then came right back to win two of three in Kansas City on the road. By now, no one should be surprised at their ability to get up after getting knocked down.

“To put it lightly, we had kind of a [lousy] series in Sacramento," catcher Jake Rogers said over the weekend. "And it was important for us to get back and play good baseball again. All the guys have done a really good job of having short memories and coming back from that adversity."

They keep doing that. Now they’ve extended their lead in the Central all over again. There are two teams in baseball with 80 wins right now. The Brewers are one. The Tigers are the other. From the time they were 55-63 last season, their record is 111-71, merely 40 games over .500. We keep hearing, well, there might not be a great team in the American League this year. We sure about that?