Tigers' Recent Slide Is One of the Worst Ever, According to OptaStats

The Tigers came into July with the best record in baseball.

They’re now on the wrong side of history.

Detroit has lost 12 of its last 13 games, and it’s not just the record—it’s how they’ve lost. According to OptaStats, the Tigers are the only team in the modern era to go through a 13-game stretch where they were outscored by 50 or more runs, outhit by 50 or more hits, struck out at least 125 times, and managed fewer than 25 extra-base hits.

That’s not just a slump. That’s a collapse.

Even the Tigers’ most productive hitters haven’t been able to pull them out of it. Javier Báez and Gleyber Torres were both named All-Stars this season and carried the offense early. Báez was batting around .266 with 10 homers and 39 RBIs through mid-July. Torres was hitting .273 with nine home runs and 45 RBIs. Both have cooled during the skid. The strikeouts are piling up. The extra-base hits have disappeared. And the lineup, once one of the best in the league, looks completely out of sync.

The pitching hasn’t been perfect, but the starters have kept them in games. The offense just hasn’t shown up. Even solid efforts from Tarik Skubal have gone to waste. The Tigers aren’t just losing, they’re getting outplayed across the board.

Kerry Carpenter is back from the injured list, and the hope is that his left-handed bat can offer some kind of spark. But it’s going to take more than one return to pull Detroit out of this. They’ve gone from the top of the standings to a historic freefall in less than three weeks.

There’s time to stop the bleeding. But the damage is already done. And thanks to OptaStats, it now has a place in the record books.