It wasn’t supposed to end this way, with Tarik Skubal in the Dodgers’ rotation and October spent on vacation. Especially because it started with legitimate optimism.
The 2026 Detroit Tigers, fresh off an impressive postseason run that ended just outs from the ALCS, entered this season with massive stakes. Skubal, the back-to-back AL Cy Young, sat at the center of it all. With his contract expiring at season’s end and the Tigers unlikely to retain him long-term, this campaign almost certainly represented the franchise’s last chance to contend with the consensus best pitcher on the planet.
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It proved to be a chance not taken.
The Tigers, spiritually discarded for weeks now, were officially eliminated on Sunday, putting this most miserable season out of its misery. The bevy of disappointing would-be contenders across the sport — see: Queens, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto — has somewhat overshadowed Detroit’s slide into irrelevance. But make no mistake: This was an incredibly bizarre, crushing and frustrating year for a team with massive aspirations.
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The No. 1 culprit? The month of May.
The Tigers started the season fine, posting a .500 record across March and April that was good enough to secure first place in a mediocre AL Central. Then everything went off the rails. Skubal hitting the IL on May 4 after undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow turned out to be an insurmountable blow. From that date until May 24, Detroit went an unfathomably bad 2-16. They finished May with an awful 6-22 record, the most losses in a single month by any MLB club this season.
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During that month, the Tigers’ offense ranked dead last in runs per game (2.89), slugging percentage (.309), OPS (.597) and home runs (18). They scored more than four runs just four times and managed two or fewer 12 times. Their undermanned pitching staff wasn’t quite as dreadful but didn’t exactly pick up the slack. Pricy offseason acquisition Framber Valdez struggled to a 5.93 ERA across five May starts. Jack Flaherty, with a 6.26, was even less effective. Without Skubal for the whole month and without Mize for parts of it, manager AJ Hinch was forced to lean heavily on his bullpen. That strategy backfired, with Detroit’s relief corps blowing 11 saves in May.
As with any catastrophic run of play, misfortune was also involved. Nine of Detroit’s 22 May losses were by one run. The Tigers lost in extras four times and by walk-off four times. Statistically, the bullpen’s 4.20 ERA wasn’t too horrible; they just found ways to give up runs in big moments of close games time after time after time. Detroit woke up on the morning of May 1 at .500 and in first in the AL Central. They woke up on June 1 in the basement and 16 games under.
If you remove May from the equation, the 2026 Tigers actually look like one of the better teams in the sport. They’ve gone 67-60 outside that month, ranking second in runs allowed per game and fifth in runs scored per game. But when things went so sideways so early, it put Detroit in too deep a hole to climb out of.
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It also made a Skubal trade inevitable, even as the Tigers battled back to just four games under .500 by July 24. On Aug. 2, president of baseball operations Scott Harris pulled the trigger, sending Skubal to the Dodgers for a trio of prospects. But Detroit played well in the days after the deal, crawling back to just one game under .500 after a home series win against the Guardians in mid-August. Then the White Sox came to Comerica and swept the Tigers on their turf, precipitating a tumble from which Detroit would never recover.
Injuries, of course, played a major role. Plantar fasciitis severely limited slugger Kerry Carpenter. Javier Baez, after his surprise All-Star season in 2025, has appeared in fewer than 60 games. Mize, now a Padre, was out for long stretches. Of course, nothing was more damaging than Skubal going down in early May.
Moving forward, there’s still a lot to like about this roster. Top prospect Max Clark has performed well since debuting on July 31. Dillon Dingler looked like one of the best catchers in baseball before falling off in the second half. Hao-Yu Lee might be an every-day guy. Riley Greene put up the quietest .856 OPS in the sport. Troy Melton has a 2.52 ERA in 110 2/3 innings. Keider Montero solidified himself as a viable rotation option. And most importantly, Kevin McGonigle emerged as one of the best young players in the sport.
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The AL Rookie of the Year front-runner has produced 6.8 bWAR with an advanced offensive approach, 17 homers and stellar defensive work. Crucially, the Tigers inked him to an eight-year, $150 million extension in April. His presence and Clark’s arrival keep the Tigers’ window open despite Skubal’s exit. There’s also enough money coming off the books — between Skubal, Gleyber Torres, Justin Verlander and Kenley Jansen — for Harris and Co. to reinforce this roster.
Whether this front office will be successful in doing so remains to be seen. Last winter’s moves -— Verlander, Torres, Jansen, Drew Anderson, Kyle Finnegan — were woefully insufficient to ensure Detroit remained in contention. It was an outcome that skeptics saw coming; even if Skubal’s time on the shelf was beyond any reasonable prediction, the Tigers should’ve been better prepared with additional pitching depth.
More than anything, this season will be remembered as the year Detroit traded Skubal. Really, the Tigers had no other choice, but it was their own fault that they were in such a position in the first place.
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