The Cleveland Guardians haven’t secured the tiebreaker against the Detroit Tigers for the AL Central division title.
But they have.
What on Earth am I talking about?
Read on …
Right now the Tigers are one game ahead of the Guardians with 6 games left to play. It’s therefore very possible that they end up tied for the division lead. In that case, the division winner would be decided by a tiebreaker.
The tiebreaker is based on which team has won more games in their head-to-head matchups this season. The Guardians have won 6 of the 10 games played between them and the Tigers so far this year, and the Tigers have won 4. But there are 3 more to be played, and they’ll be played today through Thursday. Whichever team ends up with 7 or more wins against the other wins the tiebreaker between them.
So for Detroit to win the tiebreaker, they’ll need to win all three of the remaining games. But that would put Detroit 4 games ahead of Cleveland with only 3 games left to play in the season. Cleveland would not be able to make up that ground, so would not be able to win the division (not even by a tie and a tiebreaker).
The only way for a tie to come about this year is therefore if Cleveland wins at least one game against Detroit. And if that happens, Cleveland reaches the required 7 wins to hold the tiebreaker.
Basically, if the tiebreaker matters, then the Cleveland Guardians will hold it.
And that also means that whichever team wins this three game series between them, will find themselves in the lead for the division, just as was the case with the Seattle Mariners/Houston Astros series this past weekend.
And that makes the Guardians/Tigers series the most impactful series happening right now. Definitely one to keep an eye on!
The Baseballsphere Blog 