{"id":123738,"date":"2026-06-12T09:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=123738"},"modified":"2026-06-12T09:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:12:10","slug":"detroit-tigers-june-playoff-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/06\/12\/detroit-tigers-june-playoff-hopes\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Tigers June Hot Streak Gives Team Playoff Hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers June hot streak has seen the team win seven of nine to begin the month. This comes after they won just six in all of May. Detroit seemed down and out just a few short weeks ago and were having to contend with swirling rumors about a potential trade involving Tarik Skubal<\/a> and other veterans on short term contracts. But with their new hot streak comes new hope. Is this Detroit Tigers June win streak sustainable, or just a blip on the radar?<\/p>\n

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Detroit Tigers Off to Red-Hot Start in June<\/h2>\n

The Tigers were favorites to win their first division crown since 2014 entering the season, but a fallow May soured those expectations. Then, after Skubal threw a bullpen session at Tropicana Field<\/a>, Detroit’s fortunes changed and they put up 10 runs en route to a road win. It was their first time scoring double-digit runs in a single game since April 16th. They proceeded to put up 25 runs across their three-game sweep of the Rays<\/a>, the first time Detroit had won a series in a month.<\/p>\n

The Tigers haven’t cooled off since, winning their next two series in succession to begin June. These three series wins have come against some pretty good opposition to boot. Tampa Bay is dueling the New York Yankees for the AL East lead, the next series win was a rematch of last season’s ALDS with Detroit topping the Seattle Mariners this time, before the recent win over division rivals and surprise package the Minnesota Twins.<\/p>\n

Beyond muddying the waters for a potential Tarik Skubal trade, the Detroit Tigers June\u00a0hot streak also puts forth the question of whether Detroit should go for broke this season, or being building for 2027 and beyond.<\/p>\n

Strong Rotation, Improving Offense<\/h3>\n

We all knew the Tigers would have a good rotation entering the 2026 season. They have faced adversity here, however, with Skubal being only the highest-profile injury to the starting corps. Casey Mize<\/a> is rehabbing from his second IL stint of the season, and we haven’t seen Justin Verlander<\/a> healthy since late March. Troy Melton<\/a> started the season injured, only returning in the last two weeks. On top of that, Jack Flaherty<\/a> has been a real disappointment after two straight solid seasons. However, with the injured players all projected to return over the next week or so, the rotation is against among the AL’s best.<\/p>\n

\"The
Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander celebrates the 3-0 win against the Oakland Athletics in Game 5 of the ALDS in Oakland, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013.
Justin Verlander<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Detroit’s offense was a huge sore spot in May. The Tigers produced an average of 2.81 runs per game in May, with the MLB average being closer to 4.4 or 4.5 during that time. This was surprising given the strong core of young position players at the team at the moment. Dillon Dingler<\/a> is staking his claim for best catcher<\/a> in the AL, Riley Greene<\/a> remains a stalwart in outfield, and the likes of Colt Keith<\/a> and Kerry Carpenter<\/a> have good underlying metrics, even if that hasn’t resulted in big numbers.<\/p>\n

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Colt’s turn \u203c\ufe0f pic.twitter.com\/e2CuknsaM5<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Detroit Tigers (@tigers) June 11, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Things are starting to click on offense now that the calendar has turned to June. Entering play on Friday, the Tigers have plated 62 runs through nine games to begin the month, for an average of 6.88 runs per game. While this seems unsustainable, it’s clear that Detroit has a much better offense than they showed in May.<\/p>\n

Potential Pitfalls<\/h3>\n

The Tigers’ June streak could be undone by their biggest weakness so far this season; the bullpen. The reliever corps has yielded seven walk-off hits in 2026 already, the most in the majors. While they will get a boost from a returning Kenley Jansen<\/a>, neither he nor the other leverage arms in the ‘pen have produced to expectations this season. Will Vest<\/a> has been less than consistent compared with the last two years, and Kyle Finnegan<\/a> isn’t nearly as assured as down the stretch last season.<\/p>\n

If the team can continue to put up 6+ runs per game, this might not be an issue. But, no team can count on that many runs every night. It is clear that in order for this team to turn from a playoff hopeful to a realistic AL contender, they will simply have to improve the bullpen. The Detroit Tigers will also have to continue to hit well, which they haven’t been able to do consistently until the last two weeks. Don’t count this group out, but a playoff berth is far from a certainty right now.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: Junfu Han \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers June hot streak has seen the team win seven of nine to begin the month. This comes after they won just six in all of May. Detroit seemed down and out just a few short weeks ago and were having to contend with swirling rumors about a potential trade involving Tarik Skubal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5825,"featured_media":123440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1071],"tags":[1994,3675,3784,3207,247,432,5910,28572,2634,3082,29082,29087],"class_list":["post-123738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tigers","category-mlb","tag-casey-mize","tag-colt-keith","tag-dillon-dingler","tag-jack-flaherty","tag-justin-verlander","tag-kenley-jansen","tag-kerry-carpenter","tag-kyle-finnegan","tag-riley-greene","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-troy-melton","tag-will-vest"],"modified_by":"Andrew Willis","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123738"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123741,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123738\/revisions\/123741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}