Kansas City Royals at Detroit Tigers

The only thing predictable about the Tigers these days is the Trade Deadline questions they get, and the answers they provide. They came again on Thursday, with the Tigers back home for the first time since the All-Star break. They responded with many of the same answers they provided on their week-long road trip. “My consecutive streak is alive of having to answer a Tarik Skubal question every day for, like, three months,” said manager A.J. Hinch, slightly exaggerating, before their series opener against the Royals at Comerica Park. The answers are pretty much the same, revolving around staying focused on the next game, controlling what they can control on the field, letting the rest sort itself out. But the more they win, the more they let their play do the talking. “It doesn't really matter unless we win today's game,” said Skubal. “We have to continue to play good baseball.” Hours later, as they celebrated a 4-3 win over the Royals on Dillon Dingler’s go-ahead eighth-inning double, they had the kind of gritty win that characterized their 2024 run to the playoffs. And they took another small step toward making the buy/sell debate more difficult. Detroit’s fifth win in seven games out of the All-Star break brought the Tigers within four games of the final American League Wild Card spot and six games of the AL Central lead. They’ll send Skubal to the mound on Friday for what lines up to be his next-to-last start before the Deadline. “I think we have a chance to win a World Series. I've said that since Spring Training,” Skubal said. “That's never changed, that belief in this team has never changed throughout the season. Obviously, we put ourselves in a tough situation, but I think we've come out of that tough situation playing really good baseball.” Their brand of baseball on Thursday was more timely and pragmatic. Shut down for six innings by former Toledo Mud Hen Randy Dobnak and veteran lefty reliever Matt Strahm, the Tigers fell behind on an Isaac Collins two-run home run that chased starter Troy Melton in the sixth, only to rally on a three-run homer from waiver claim James Outman in the seventh on a fly ball that barely cleared the wall. “It’s been a ton of fun,” Outman said of his Tiger tenure. “I think we’re playing really good baseball. We’re winning a lot of different ways. It feels like we show up to the yard and we expect to win, and it’s really special when you’re on a team like that.”