Throwback Thursday: The Blue Jays and Tigers open a series with first place in the American League on the line

Hamilton Spectator

5 days ago

Turn the clock back almost 40 years:
The Blue Jays
are heading to Detroit with the best record in the American League on the line.
The Jays and Tigers were fierce rivals in the 1980s and early 90s before Detroit moved to the AL Central in 1994 and, though they now play in different divisions, both teams are among the league's elite again.
The Jays' 8-4 win over the New York Yankees at Rogers Centre Wednesday night moved them to 60-42, tied with the Houston Astros for the best record in the American League, half a game ahead of Detroit.
The schedule-makers may have been kind to the Jays, with the Tigers in their biggest tailspin of the season right now.
Former Blue Jay
Spencer Horwitz belted a grand slam to help Pittsburgh to a 6-1 home win
over Detroit on Wednesday, securing a series sweep for the last-place Pirates and handing the Tigers their ninth loss in 10 games.
'That's a real thing,' Jays manager John Schneider said of the Tigers' slump before Wednesday's series finale with the Yankees. 'But it can change in a day. I know that they have been what they have been, but it could change when they get home. You never really know.'
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Spencer Horwitz hit his first career grand slam and Bailey Falter matched a
The first four games of this Detroit slide came at home, then they hit the road after the all-star break for what wound up being a 1-5 trip through Texas and Pittsburgh, getting beat by two teams that had losing records when the Tigers arrived.
But before the last fortnight, they were something else, which is one of the reasons they still have a nine-game lead in the American League Central. The other reason, of course, is the Central has only one other team that's over .500 - the 51-50 Cleveland Guardians.
But you can't build a 59-34 record on smoke and mirrors. The Tigers did it by being strong pretty much everywhere.
Before their slide began, Detroit's pitching staff was third in the major leagues with a 3.46 ERA and 1.19 WHIP, led by left-hander Tarik Skubal, who is currently on paternity leave but likely to pitch Saturday night against the Jays' Kevin Gausman.
Skubal, who
started last week's all-star game
,
won the Cy Young Award
last year and
has picked up right where he left off
. The 28-year-old is 10-3 on the season and currently leads the majors with a 0.82 WHIP and the AL with a 2.19 ERA.
The hitters, entering Wednesday, ranked sixth in the majors in OPS, home runs and runs scored, with 24-year-old outfielder Riley Greene leading the way. The left-handed swinger tops the team with 25 homers, 79 RBIs and an .855 OPS. He also leads the majors with 135 strikeouts.
Greene was one of a half-dozen Tigers selected to the AL all-star team.
The record was broken on a Loonie Dog night, where attendees can buy a hot dog for a dollar
'I think you've got to look at them as one of the better teams in baseball,' Gausman said in a conversation that can be heard on the July 24 episode of
'Deep Left Field,'
the Star's baseball podcast.
' I don't think you pay too much attention to how they're playing lately because they've been so good all season.'
The Jays
lost
two
of three games when the Tigers came to Toronto in mid-May, outscored 9-8. Each game was decided by one run, with the Jays' win coming on a
walk-off single by Ernie Clement in the bottom of the ninth inning
of the middle game.
With one-game tiebreakers no longer in use, the Jays need to win three of four in Detroit in order to clinch the season series with the Tigers — as they did with the Yankees on Wednesday — which could very well factor into home-field advantage in the playoffs, if not a first-round bye.
The Tigers finished second to the division-winning Jays in 1991 and third in both 1985 and 1992, while the Jays finished second to Detroit in 1984 and the heartbreaking 1987. Finally, these 401 rivals are back at it again.